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Incident 371: Uganda Deployed Huawei's Facial Recognition to Monitor Political Opposition and Protests

Description: Huawei's AI systems involving facial recognition were reportedly deployed by the Ugandan government to monitor political opposition actors and anti-regime sentiments, which raised fears of surveillance and suppression of individual freedoms.

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Alleged: Huawei developed an AI system deployed by Ugandan government, which harmed political opposition in Uganda.

Incident Stats

Incident ID
371
Report Count
3
Incident Date
2019-11-29
Editors
Khoa Lam
Applied Taxonomies
MIT

MIT Taxonomy Classifications

Machine-Classified
Taxonomy Details

Risk Subdomain

A further 23 subdomains create an accessible and understandable classification of hazards and harms associated with AI
 

4.1. Disinformation, surveillance, and influence at scale

Risk Domain

The Domain Taxonomy of AI Risks classifies risks into seven AI risk domains: (1) Discrimination & toxicity, (2) Privacy & security, (3) Misinformation, (4) Malicious actors & misuse, (5) Human-computer interaction, (6) Socioeconomic & environmental harms, and (7) AI system safety, failures & limitations.
 
  1. Malicious Actors & Misuse

Entity

Which, if any, entity is presented as the main cause of the risk
 

Human

Timing

The stage in the AI lifecycle at which the risk is presented as occurring
 

Post-deployment

Intent

Whether the risk is presented as occurring as an expected or unexpected outcome from pursuing a goal
 

Intentional

Incident Reports

Reports Timeline

Incident OccurrenceSurveillance, censorship threaten Internet freedom and Democracy in Uganda, says Unwanted WitnessUganda is using Huawei’s facial recognition tech to crack down on dissent after anti-government protestsUganda is using Huawei's facial recognition tech to crack down on dissent after protests
Surveillance, censorship threaten Internet freedom and Democracy in Uganda, says Unwanted Witness

Surveillance, censorship threaten Internet freedom and Democracy in Uganda, says Unwanted Witness

unwantedwitness.org

Uganda is using Huawei’s facial recognition tech to crack down on dissent after anti-government protests

Uganda is using Huawei’s facial recognition tech to crack down on dissent after anti-government protests

yahoo.com

Uganda is using Huawei's facial recognition tech to crack down on dissent after protests

Uganda is using Huawei's facial recognition tech to crack down on dissent after protests

yahoo.com

Surveillance, censorship threaten Internet freedom and Democracy in Uganda, says Unwanted Witness
unwantedwitness.org · 2020

Kampala | 18 Jan 2020 | As Uganda joins the rest of the world to mark World Internet Freedom day, Unwanted Witness is concerned about the budding use of technology by the state to diminish citizens’ rights and dignity.

While technology is a…

Uganda is using Huawei’s facial recognition tech to crack down on dissent after anti-government protests
yahoo.com · 2020

Long before the Nov. 18-19 protests in Uganda that left more than 50 people dead, opposition politicians, and local activists had warned about the potential abuse and human rights implications of an invasive surveillance system bought by th…

Uganda is using Huawei's facial recognition tech to crack down on dissent after protests
yahoo.com · 2022

Long before the Nov. 18-19 protests in Uganda that left more than 50 people dead, opposition politicians, and local activists had warned about the potential abuse and human rights implications of an invasive surveillance system bought by th…

Variants

A "variant" is an incident that shares the same causative factors, produces similar harms, and involves the same intelligent systems as a known AI incident. Rather than index variants as entirely separate incidents, we list variations of incidents under the first similar incident submitted to the database. Unlike other submission types to the incident database, variants are not required to have reporting in evidence external to the Incident Database. Learn more from the research paper.

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