Safe City project or "Surveillance State" project: They told us it will reduce crime…..They didn’t tell us that it will cover up crime !!!”

The Safe City project which comprises the installation of 4,000 intelligent surveillance cameras, 4,500 trunking smart handsets, 350 vehicle-mounted radios, 150 fixed desktop terminals to be installed in various Police Stations/Posts and an Emergency Response Management System is being financed by a loan of Rs 16 billion from Export-Import (Exim) Bank of China, payable over 20 years.

They told us that it will reduce crime; what they did not tell us was that it will also help to cover up crime !!! We are under video surveillance which is being used and manipulated by the Authorities as they deem fit !!!

The Prime Minister had ensured us that the intelligent surveillance system put in place in the context of the Safe City project will not pose a threat to the privacy of Mauritians. He reiterated that the aim of the project is to fight crime, drug trafficking and thefts and to render traffic management more effective. “This project will have a positive impact on the lives of citizens,” he said.

Impact !!! Yes, it is having, but not positive at all !!!!

We were worried then when we were told that the data will be used by trained police officers and will be stored for a reasonable time and that there will be no legislation or a Code of Practice to cover the Police use of the CCTV cameras and prevent abuse, misuse, surveillance of all types against citizens, civil servants or any opposition politician. Unlike DNA or fingerprints, there is no specific regulation governing how police use facial recognition or manage the data gathered.

Government has not been transparent about the usage of the data. We did not want it to be used by law enforcement because of the impact that will have on society - it might limit people's willingness to go in public spaces where they think they might be tracked. This new technology as it exists today is unreliable, and represents an unnecessary infringement on people’s privacy and liberty. In many countries legislators have voted to ban the use of facial recognition. They have declared that face surveillance technology is incompatible with a healthy democracy and that residents deserve a voice in decisions about high-tech surveillance. In UK an office worker has crowdfunded to launch UK's first major legal challenge to police facial recognition cameras which he claims have breached his human rights while he was Christmas shopping.

We have doubts about how the biometric data will be extracted and processed without our consent ; these CCTV cameras raise a fundamental question about invasion of privacy as well as data protection and equality laws.

Ram Seegobin , one of the leaders of Lalit alerted us to the "possibility that we may be finding ourselves already in a surveillance society and that the safe city camera is like having the NIU posted on every street with a notebook.” Are we safe with the Safe City project ?

With the Kistnen affair, we have realised that we have enough reasons not to feel safe with the Safe City cameras that are under the control and use of this dictatorial and unreliable regime that switches these off and on as per its wishes and interests!!!

We are really scared. It is now confirmed that we have not only attained the status of "Banana Republic" but also that of a "Surveillance State" !!!

9Prakash Neerohoo, Rashmee Daby and 7 others

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• Prakash Neerohoo

  Unlike standard cameras, which record at all times, the Safe City cameras decide when, where and how to record. They have absolute discretion to decide who to watch. They should have a very sophisticated software to choose and pick targets.