All eyes on me? The increasing trend of automated technologies in border surveillance

• Rafael Zanatta, Associação Data Privacy Brasil de Pesquisa (DPBR);
• Helena Secaf, Associação Data Privacy Brasil de Pesquisa (DPBR);
• Ksenia Bakina, Privacy International (PI);
• Eduardo Carrillo, TEDIC;
• Eduardo Ferreyra, Asociación por los Derechos Civiles (ADC);
• Camilla Graham Wood, Privacy International (PI).

• The employment of automated technologies for border surveillance and securitization has been an increasing trend in the public security field. To give some examples, in 2013, the Brazilian government bought highly intrusive drones of Israeli origin to increase security in the Confederations Cup; in 2017, Argentina bought and employed similar technology to control different borders of its territory; in 2019, Brazil inaugurated the so called “Integrated Center of Border Operations (CIOF)”, a public security program in the Triple Border Area that has already implemented database integration as a public security strategy; and since 2020, the Paraguayan government has deployed facial recognition technology to control migration flows between Paraguay and Brazil. And this is not an isolated Latin American trend.
• The same movement can be seen in the EU, which in 2020, for instance, presented its “New Pact on Migration and Asylum”, which allows the use of a EU-wide information system that primarily processes the fingerprints of asylum seekers and certain categories of irregular migrants, as well as in the UK, where the Home Office has been developing several large IT systems to track individuals throughout the borders with the ability to converge facial, DNA, and fingerprint data into a single platform. These processes, however, are being implemented and conducted in a dangerously opaque way, and this lack of transparency and accountability raises serious concerns regarding the risks of State surveillance and violation of fundamental rights.
• Given this scenario, the panel has the main goal of shedding light into these issues, presenting this topic as an urgent subject of study for the data protection community. Specifically, the panel aims to

1. bring awareness to the subject, presenting some concrete cases that demonstrate the trend of datafication of border surveillance;
2. exchange perceptions and studies about the risks to human rights that can result from the capabilities of these technologies when employed in an opaque, unaccountable and careless way and, in the face of these risks;
3. foster the debate on what should be the role of civil organizations that work with the theme in this scenario. Specifically, how can they intervene in these processes? How to give visibility to the new types of damage that can occur due to this automated public safety and dialogue about them with State and private actors involved?

References:

1. Exploratory study conducted by DPBR and TEDIC about the “Integrated Center of Border Operations” (CIOF):
   1. Português
   2. English
   3. Español
2. Migration and Borders
3. #ConMiCaraNo campaign