Information Security in Small-Scale Protests: Surveillance of Ugandan Anti-EACOP Protesters
For security researchers and practitioners, it provides a grounded understanding of information security in small-scale protests under state surveillance, though the findings are context-specific and incremental.
This study examines information security practices of Ugandan climate activists protesting the EACOP, finding that state surveillance and repression lead activists to adopt autonomous, everyday tactics for protecting information and ensuring personal safety.
We examine the information security practices of Ugandan climate activists protesting the development of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP). We conducted five-week fieldwork in Kampala, Uganda, which included interviews with 13 anti-EACOP activists. Through an inductive analysis, we report on the complexities faced by small groups of predominantly student protesters as they covertly organise small-scale anti-EACOP protests within a context marked by state surveillance and repression. Our study points to a multi-layered adversarial landscape, where participants' experiences of direct threats, including arrests and information compromise, and their fears of abduction, shaped their security practices. These practices were rooted in autonomous decision-making within groups. We present a grounded understanding of how participants' need to protect information for their own security, as well as that of others, permeated their lives, leading them to adjust day-to-day aspects of their device management, communication, accommodation, transport and social relations as deliberate tactics to mitigate surveillance.