officials and give feedback about public service delivery
Source: Knight Foundation, “The Emergence of Civic Tech: Investments in a Growing Field” (2013)
E-Governance Master Plan
See Chapter 2 on ICT Government Institutions, Policies and Legal Framework.
ICTs and Law Enforcement
During the 2007 Saffron Revolution, ICTs facilitated the flow of information domestically
and internationally, highlighting the violent Government crackdown on peacefully
protesting Buddhist monks, even though mobile penetration in Myanmar was less than
1%. Today, national mobile penetration is approaching 50%. As more people in Myanmar
have access to mobile devices with cameras, this has increased transparency around the
conduct of law enforcement. In March 2015, photos and video of student protesters in
Letpadan being beaten by police were uploaded online and ICT users accessed local and
international news reporting on the protests from their mobile devices.
ICTs can support checks and balances on law enforcement. But law enforcement is also
expanding operations into the digital realm. Following police crackdown on student
protesters in Yangon, activists reported their phones being tapped and social media
accounts being hacked by law enforcement agencies. (See 4.4 Surveillance)
Table 30: Case Study on ICTs and the Kenya Election
The disputed 2007 Presidential election in Kenya resulted in an outbreak of postelection violence that left over 1,000 people dead and over 600,000 people displaced.
Post-election inquiries into the violence acknowledged the role of SMS messages and
online blogs in exploiting tensions between ethnic communities and inciting violence.
In the run up to the 2013 elections, concerns of another outbreak of violence and
fears over the potential of SMS to simultaneously send messages that incite violence
led the Kenyan mobile operator Safaricom to take action. Recognising the potentially
negative role of bulk SMSs sent by politicians during the last elections, Safaricom
decided to develop its own code of conduct in vetting bulk SMS content that political
parties, politicians and aspirants wished to send in the run up to the 2013 elections. In
2012, Safaricom developed Guidelines for Political Mobile Advertising on Safaricom’s
Premium Rate Messaging Service. 165 Under these guidelines, anyone intending to
send bulk SMS of a political nature would first have to submit an application to
Safaricom, which would vet the content to ensure they did not contain instances of
hate speech. In addition to this, Safaricom sought and received the support of the
Government and the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) to develop and
165
Bloggers Association of Kenya, “Safaricom Issues Tough Guidelines For Political Messaging” (15 June
2012).
CHAPTER 3: SECTOR-LEVEL IMPACTS
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