Drawing on evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa, this paper explores the various forms of surveillance present on mobile money platforms. At the most basic level, mobile money is the provision of financial services through a mobile device. Over the past decade, these platforms have witnessed astonishing rates of adoption in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ghana, and elsewhere. While some authors have praised the transformative potential of mobile money, particularly in parts of the world in which large numbers of people remain “unbanked,” more critical voices have expressed concerns about the economic risks and regulatory challenges associated with mobile money. This article focuses on an underexplored but nevertheless significant feature of mobile money platforms: the ways in which they facilitate surveillance by service providers and government authorities. Relatively established forms of surveillance include mandates for identifying customers prior to service provision. I also discuss the monitoring of mobile money agents, who receive a commission for turning cash into electronic value (and vice versa). Well-established mobile money providers are said to operate in-house “bank-grade” monitoring systems to identify suspicious transactions and comply with antimoney laundering regulations. Government agencies are also implementing bespoke monitoring solutions in countries where authorities, distrustful of mobile money providers’ self-reported data, seek to more stringently enforce regulatory compliance while also maximizing tax revenues from mobile money transactions. An analysis of these different forms of surveillance reveals their multipurpose and multi-scalar nature. I argue that the impacts of mobile money platform surveillance need to be better understood, particularly from a financial inclusion perspective.

中文翻译：

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移动货币平台监控

借鉴撒哈拉以南非洲的证据，本文探讨了移动货币平台上存在的各种形式的监视。在最基本的层面上，移动货币是通过移动设备提供金融服务。在过去的十年中，这些平台在肯尼亚，坦桑尼亚，乌干达，加纳和其他地方见证了惊人的采用率。尽管一些作者称赞了移动货币的变革潜力，特别是在世界上仍有大量人“没有银行账户”的地区，但更多的批评声音表达了对与移动货币相关的经济风险和监管挑战的担忧。本文重点介绍移动货币平台的一个尚未开发但仍很重要的功能：它们促进服务提供商和政府当局进行监视的方式。相对建立的监视形式包括在提供服务之前识别客户的要求。我还将讨论对移动货币代理商的监控，这些代理商会收到将现金转化为电子价值（反之亦然）的佣金。据说，成熟的移动货币提供商将运行内部“银行级”监控系统，以识别可疑交易并遵守反洗钱法规。政府机构还在一些国家/地区实施定制的监视解决方案，在这些国家/地区，当局不信任移动货币提供商的自我报告数据，力图更严格地执行法规遵从性，同时最大程度地提高移动货币交易的税收收入。对这些不同形式的监视的分析揭示了它们的多用途和多标量性质。