PI’s submission to the UN Working Group on the Use of Mercenaries

We responded to the call for inputs of the UN Working Group on the Use of Mercenaries to inform its upcoming report on the use of technology in the operations and activities of mercenaries, mercenary-related actors and private military and security companies to be submitted to the 63rd Session of the Human Rights Council in September 2026.

The decision to examine the role of technology in mercenary and private military and security companies (PMSCs) operations couldn’t be timelier. This inquiry follows the Working Group’s seminal 2021 report on mercenaries and cyberspace, and reflects the acceleration of the technology landscape since then. We submited this contribution on the basis of our direct research and expertise in surveillance, data exploitation, and the intersection of private security actors within the global surveillance ecosystem.

In our submission, we highlighted the role of the surveillance ecosystem as an infrastructure for mercenary and PMSCs operations (section 1); the rise of private surveillance services (section 2); the harm chain from privacy to other human rights (section 3); the barriers to access to remedies (section 4) and concluded with recommendations to the Working Group.