Privacy, Political Participation, and Dissent
Malcolm Katrak, Chakrabarty Ishita · Oxford University Press eBooks · 2023
Abstract The ascendant trend in relation to the use of facial recognition technologies (FRTs) for surveillance purposes across a heterogeneity of regime types and geographical regions has raised concerns pertaining to the erosion of the right to privacy and, in turn, the stymieing of political participation in public spaces. This chapter undertakes an analysis of the right to privacy in the context of FRTs in the Global South. To that end, it will chart the legal framework pertaining to privacy in the Global South, the ramifications of the rampant use of FRTs for privacy and also—importantly—for democratic participation. The authors argue that the centrality of the informational conception of privacy in the existing legal framework provides insufficient safeguards against rising digital authoritarianism. This chapter will, instead, argue in favour of the entrenchment of a broader, overarching right to privacy that accounts for both its decisional and informational aspects, which insulates political participation from the debilitating effects of state surveillance in the Global South.