# Cape Town’s expanding surveillance network: safer streets at what cost?

An episode of [Afternoon Drive with John Maytham](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1212305258), 22 Oct 2026, 7:04.

Audio: https://p.podderapp.com/1951050295/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/5dcefa8e-00a9-4595-8ce1-a4ab0080f142/e2113905-04ff-472c-9fff-a6cd00b63b20/7868c615-b92f-4168-9988-b4eb010030f3/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=cab9ce5d-42b6-4239-9177-a6cd00b6d1ff

To discuss Cape Town’s expanding surveillance network, the balance between public safety and the right to privacy, and the legal safeguards governing how surveillance data is collected and used, John Maytham is joined by Nathan-Ross Adams, founder of ITLawCo and the South African Technology and Economic Competitiveness Initiative (Sateci). Presenter John Maytham is an actor and author-turned-talk radio veteran and seasoned journalist. His show serves a round-up of local and international news coupled with the latest in business, sport, traffic and weather. The host’s eclectic interests mean the program often surprises the audience with intriguing book reviews and inspiring interviews profiling artists. A daily highlight is Rapid Fire, just after 5:30pm. CapeTalk fans call in, to stump the presenter with their general knowledge questions. Another firm favourite is the humorous Thursday crossing with award-winning journalist Rebecca Davis, called “Plan B”. Thank you for listening to a podcast from Afternoon Drive with John Maytham Listen live on Primedia+ weekdays from 15:00 and 18:00 (SA Time) to Afternoon Drive with John Maytham broadcast on CapeTalk https://buff.ly/NnFM3Nk For more from the show go to https://buff.ly/BSFy4Cn or find all the catch-up podcasts here https://buff.ly/n8nWt4x Subscribe to the CapeTalk Daily and Weekly Newsletters https://buff.ly/sbvVZD5 Follow us on social media: CapeTalk on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CapeTalk CapeTalk on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@capetalk CapeTalk on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ CapeTalk on X: https://x.com/CapeTalk CapeTalk on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CapeTalk567 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Nathan Ross-Adams is our next guest, the founder of the
[0:03] Speaker 1: IT Law Company and the South African Technology and Economic
[0:08] Speaker 1: Competitiveness Initiative. And I'm talking to Nathan because of something
[0:14] Speaker 1: he wrote, Cape Town's Expanding Surveillance Network, Safer Streets at
[0:21] Speaker 1: What Cost? Nathan, good afternoon. Thank you very much for
[0:25] Speaker 1: your time.
[0:25] Speaker 2: You're welcome. Good afternoon, John. Good afternoon, listeners.
[0:29] Speaker 1: I find myself sort of puzzled by my own view
[0:31] Speaker 1: on this because on most issues, I'm what I would
[0:34] Speaker 1: call mildly left, but I'm slightly more than mildly right
[0:40] Speaker 1: on this. I don't mind being surveilled because I'm not
[0:44] Speaker 1: doing anything wrong.
[0:48] Speaker 2: Great point. But it brings us back to that old
[0:53] Speaker 2: argument about whether– If you want privacy, it's because you
[0:58] Speaker 2: have something to hide, which I don't think is particularly true.
[1:02] Speaker 1: No, I think there is a privacy argument to be
[1:04] Speaker 1: made by people who are not doing anything wrong. But
[1:08] Speaker 1: I just think with our levels of crime in this country,
[1:13] Speaker 1: surveillance of what we're doing and where we're going is
[1:18] Speaker 1: not the worst thing in the world.
[1:22] Speaker 2: Agreed. And I think the approach that I'm going to
[1:25] Speaker 2: take to this is very nuanced in that I do
[1:29] Speaker 2: genuinely support technology and surveillance technologies in general. And based
[1:34] Speaker 2: on the research, it can help combat crime because crime
[1:38] Speaker 2: itself takes freedom away from people. But as these systems
[1:41] Speaker 2: become more interconnected and more capable, I think it's only
[1:45] Speaker 2: fair to ask whether they work, what information they keep,
[1:50] Speaker 2: who can actually access that information, and what safeguards apply.
[1:54] Speaker 2: I don't think it needs to be an either-or situation,
[1:56] Speaker 2: like either privacy or either security. Both can exist simultaneously.
[2:02] Speaker 1: What would be the acceptable answers to those unposed questions
[2:06] Speaker 1: around who has access to it and what is done
[2:09] Speaker 1: with it for you? I mean, if you got answer A,
[2:14] Speaker 1: you'd go, it's not good enough. What would answer B?
[2:16] Speaker 1: That would just say, okay, well, that kind of satisfies me.
[2:21] Speaker 2: So really, there's the legal question and then there's the
[2:25] Speaker 2: factual question around this. The legal question is, does the
[2:30] Speaker 2: city comply with the POPE Act in processing personal data?
[2:36] Speaker 2: And then the factual question I'd want to know is
[2:38] Speaker 2: more about the security safeguards that are effectively in place
[2:42] Speaker 2: by the city. And what would make me happy is
[2:45] Speaker 2: if those questions were answered, that they were proportionate. In
[2:48] Speaker 2: other words, that... because of sensitive data being recorded, because
[2:54] Speaker 2: people's movements could potentially be traced by those records, that
[2:59] Speaker 2: there are adequate security measures in place. And just for
[3:02] Speaker 2: broader context, South Africa is in the top five in
[3:05] Speaker 2: the world of cybercrime generally. So we're not only focusing
[3:10] Speaker 2: on what the city can do itself, but also how
[3:14] Speaker 2: it can defend citizens, more broadly speaking, against cyber attacks.
[3:19] Speaker 1: And the city says it.
[3:22] Speaker 1: It adheres to all the popular regulations. I have no
[3:26] Speaker 1: information to say that they don't. Until I get credible
[3:32] Speaker 1: evidence that they are porking, then take them at face value.
[3:37] Speaker 1: But what is the, not necessarily the worst case scenario,
[3:44] Speaker 1: but what's a bad case scenario of.
[3:48] Speaker 1: The information not being properly looked after, too widely shared,
[3:52] Speaker 1: the risk to me as a citizen, which is greater
[3:56] Speaker 1: than the protection that their surveillance gives me.
[4:01] Speaker 2: Really great question. Because these surveillance systems are so sophisticated,
[4:07] Speaker 2: and I mean sophisticated in the sense that they are
[4:09] Speaker 2: multiple sources of data. So if you have a look
[4:12] Speaker 2: at the city's approach to policing generally, it is a
[4:17] Speaker 2: combination of drones, it is automated number plate recognition via cameras,
[4:24] Speaker 2: and then also just CCTV monitoring in public spaces generally.
[4:28] Speaker 2: Now those data sets can effectively be combined and create
[4:33] Speaker 2: a record of a citizen's life. It could say that, well,
[4:39] Speaker 2: there's a person that goes shopping every evening at 6 p.m.
[4:43] Speaker 2: This is when they shop. And if that information were
[4:46] Speaker 2: to get into the wrong hands, it's a safety problem.
[5:01] Speaker 1: Somebody could park themselves near my house and watch me
[5:05] Speaker 1: going out and going, right, at 8 o'clock every morning
[5:07] Speaker 1: he heads that way and he comes back and he's
[5:10] Speaker 1: got a Woolworths black bag with him, so he goes,
[5:14] Speaker 1: aren't we.
[5:16] Speaker 1: Aren't you over-egging?
[5:17] Speaker 2: I mean.
[5:21] Speaker 1: So what? I'm struggling to, as you can hear, I'm
[5:25] Speaker 1: struggling to articulate what I really feel about this.
[5:28] Speaker 2: I mean, I.
[5:29] Speaker 1: as a sort of default philosophical position, I don't want
[5:33] Speaker 1: to be surveilled by the state. But given the fact
[5:38] Speaker 1: that there's an immense amount of crime and that I'm
[5:42] Speaker 1: at risk of becoming a victim of that crime and
[5:46] Speaker 1: because my movements are innocent and boring, I kind of go,
[5:54] Speaker 1: I just can't make myself upset about being surveilled.
[5:58] Speaker 2: Well, Again, a great point. And I think what we
[6:02] Speaker 2: should do here is not assume that it's an either-or situation,
[6:06] Speaker 2: that I can either be surveilled or I could be
[6:09] Speaker 2: in a situation where I'm feeling unsafe. So, for example,
[6:13] Speaker 2: I can applaud the fact that the city has, according
[6:17] Speaker 2: to them, uncovered 541 arrests or created 541 arrests, and
[6:23] Speaker 2: then also at the same time demand that when their
[6:25] Speaker 2: technology is used that there are safeguards in place. Think
[6:29] Speaker 2: of it this way. If you have a building and
[6:32] Speaker 2: it has protected, it's your home, for security purposes, you'd
[6:36] Speaker 2: like to put in place an alarm system, electric fencing,
[6:40] Speaker 2: so you can prevent intruders from getting inside. That's what
[6:43] Speaker 2: I'm asking for as a bare minimum, as a citizen,
[6:46] Speaker 2: that if you're going to record me, I need to
[6:49] Speaker 2: at least know what safeguards you're going to put in place.
[6:52] Speaker 1: Fair enough. And I think a conversation worth having with
[6:55] Speaker 1: somebody from the city to follow up on this. Nathan Ross-Adams,
[7:00] Speaker 1: thank you very much, the founder of IT Law Company.

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