Decolonising public oversight of digital surveillance: mechanisms and mutual learning across South Africa, Zimbabwe and the United Kingdom

This article compares three episodes during which publics challenged digital surveillance: (1) post-Snowden campaigns around the United Kingdom's Investigatory Powers Act; (2) South Africa's litigation over the Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-Related Information Act linked to the #ZumaMustFall protest cycle; and (3) Zimbabwe's 2019 internet-shutdown challenge. Rather than ranking countries, the paper traces how oversight worked in each episode – what actors did, which messages resonated, and how institutions responded. Using process tracing and thematic coding, the study identifies two recurring mechanisms connecting contention to oversight outcomes. First, legal-institutional pipelines can secure incremental but durable reforms, though gains often remain concentrated among specialist organisations. Second, coalition expansion through anti-corruption framing and diaspora amplification can widen participation, sustain lawfare in moments of crisis, and translate scandals into institutional pressure for reform. A decolonial lens supports two-way learning between campaigns in the United Kingdom, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.