As AI technologies become increasingly embedded in governance, labour, and social systems, they can both support social progress and pose significant risks to civic rights, democratic participation, and social justice. This research project explores how civic freedoms can be protected in the context of expanding artificial intelligence surveillance across the African continent by analysing how AI systems are created, deployed, and regulated, with particular attention to their implications for civic space and the protection of fundamental freedoms. At its core, the project examines the links between AI surveillance, neoliberal hetero-patriarchal capitalism and their particular bearings on women, queer and marginalised individuals, and communities in Africa.
Through research, stakeholder engagement, and network collaboration, the AFSEE Lab will map how AI affects civic freedoms in Africa and develop recommendations to protect the civic spaces that are so fundamental to the exercise of our human rights. The project applies a Black women’s, queer, and feminist lens, centering perspectives that are often overlooked in AI and governance debates. To enrich its analysis, the Lab is partnering with African experts in gender, technology, economics and justice, including Uffa Modey (Digital Grassroots) and Joanita Najjuko (NAWI Collective).
Objectives
- Analyse the relationship between AI technologies and civic freedoms in African contexts, including their development, deployment, and regulation.
- Document the risks and opportunities of AI for social justice and civic action, particularly for communities that are often marginalised in technological decision-making.
- Develop recommendations and best practices to protect civic freedoms through policy, regulation, digital safeguarding, and ethical AI governance.
- Strengthen collaboration and knowledge-sharing among African civil society, policy, and technology networks working on AI, digital rights, and social justice.