Information Security in Small-Scale Protests: Surveillance of Ugandan Anti-EACOP Protesters

Abstract

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.