R2K: 70 000 cellphones spied on every year
The lobby group Right2Know (R2K) says 70 000 people are being spied on each year.
R2K says law enforcement agencies are exploiting a loophole in the country's surveillance policies to spy on South Africans.
The organisation is now calling on government to close legal loopholes that it says has allowed police to track the cellular information of tens of thousands of South Africans.
Its comments come after analysing information obtained from the country's main cellphone service providers.
R2K spokesperson Murray Hunter says their aim was to understand how a legal loophole has allowed surveillance operations to take place using the Criminal Procedures Act, rather than the RICA law.
He says RICA is meant to be South Africa's primary surveillance law which requires law enforcement and intelligence agencies to get the permission of a special judge before any surveillance can be carried out.
Hunter says R2K has already pointed out that RICA does not do enough to protect people's privacy.