In a fertile stretch of fields and farms dubbed New Harare, Zimbabwe is building a high-tech"cyber city" a world away from the traffic-clogged streets and overcrowded slums of the country's nearby capital.
Eventually, the plan for Zim Cyber City is to build upmarket residential areas, shopping malls, modern offices and information technology hubs. "There is going to be so much increased surveillance of citizens by the government," said Tawanda Mugari, a chief technology officer and co-founder of the Digital Society Africa , an advocacy group.Information minister Monica Mutsvangwa said the new city's security systems would simply be used to keep residents safe.
It can also be used to crack down on dissent by repressive governments and is problematic in the absence of data protection laws, rights groups say. "Nobody's privacy will be encroached," Nawab Shaji Ul Mulk, a chairperson at the conglomerate, told Context."Each outlet will have its own regular surveillance camera ... the management will not be involved in those surveillance cameras."Zim Cyber City is not the first smart city project to raise surveillance concerns.
POTRAZ has said the system aims to track mobile phone traffic in real-time to monitor the revenue operators generate, but digital technology experts said it would enable authorities to eavesdrop on every call in the country.A deep dive into the big business story of the week, as well as expert analysis of markets and trends.
_Business Cyber city is a fancy name for concentration camps
_Business Zim must fetch their citizens that are messing up SA.The ones actually working and trying to build SA,,can stay.
_Business If it ever gets off the ground it will obviously have to be funded, built and run by foreigners. Zim, like SA can't even fix pot holes or keep the lights on.