` Government Surveillance- Is It Really Justified?

Abuse of citizens’ rights to privacy by governments has been a recurring event in the history of governments all around the world. In some countries, laws and regulations have even been created to support or encourage such practices by their governments. Nigeria has had a fair share of these unruly practices. In 2013, The Premium Times, a newspaper based in Abuja revealed that GSM service providers were authorized by the government to monitor all methods of communication without the permission of the service users. At the time, there was political unrest, militancy and series of kidnappings in the country. The government resorted to monitoring communication amongst the citizens as a means to curb criminal activities, still the act was a violation of the International Principles on the Application of Human Rights to Communications Surveillance. That same year, a news broke out that the government on seat had secretly awarded a contract to Elbit Systems technology (headquarters in Israel) a leading establishment in the field of intelligence analysis and cyber defence to monitor all internet activities in the country and invade internet users’ privacy without permission. In other words, people’s emails, social media contents and activities could be accessed at any time! Nigeria at that time was ranked the 10th country with the highest number of internet users in the world. According to statistics done by Global Internet User, an internet audit group, the number of internet users in the country had grown from 200,000 in 2002 to a whopping 47 million in 2013. The internet had become a great tool for Nigerians to publicly air their views on different issues, some of which were somewhat detrimental to either the interim government or some of its officials who apparently had skeletons in their cupboards. For instance, Social media played a large role in mobilising people for the fuel price hike protests in 2012. Social media activists utilized effectively, the power of communicating via the internet not just to other Nigerians but to the world at large. The secret invasion of users’ internet privacy by the government via Elbit Systems was an infringement on the rights of internet users to freely express themselves. The government in their defence, stated that it was a necessary action taken to track and intercept online fraudulent activities and terrorist activities of the popular sect called Boko Haram ensuring national security in the process. However due process was not followed by the government in awarding the contract to Elbit Systems. The Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), a Nigerian agency responsible for ensuring transparency in transactions involving government contracts had no records indicating their approval of the awarded contract to the Israeli establishment as the government largely ignored the procedures of the agency. To make matters worse, there are no existing laws on privacy and data collection in Nigeria that can provide judicial protection to its citizens from such ‘unethical’ actions taken by the government.

Fortunately, technology has evolved and would keep evolving. Today, mass surveillance by any government and illegal or unlawful privacy invasion can be avoided and rejected, thanks to advent of blockchain technology. Currently, Stegos blockchain is the only platform or network that can completely protect and empower users keeping their information safe from prying eyes. Financial transactions carried out on the stegos platform are completely secure. The stegos platform also allows for private apps to be built or installed on it. A user can access or browse an app privately. This would be of great benefit to users of social media apps built or installed on the stegos platform. With platforms like Stegos, power is rightfully given back to the people and everyone can enjoy the privacy they rightfully deserve.