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Content type: Long Read
Over the last two decades we have seen an array of digital technologies being deployed in the context of border controls and immigration enforcement, with surveillance practices and data-driven immigration policies routinely leading to discriminatory treatment of people and undermining peoples’ dignity.And yet this is happening with little public scrutiny, often in a regulatory or legal void and without understanding and consideration to the impact on migrant communities at the border and…
Content type: Advocacy
Privacy International (PI), Fundaciòn Datos Protegidos, Red en Defensa de los Derechos Digitales (R3D) and Statewatch responded to the call for submission of the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, xenophobia and related intolerance on how digital technologies deployed in the context of border enforcement and administration reproduce, reinforce, and compound racial discrimination.
This submission provides information on specific digital technologies in service of border…
Content type: Long Read
It was a quiet evening in Agadez, a bustling Saharan city in the centre of Niger. Thirty-five year old Agali Ahmed was sipping tea at a friend’s place, as he often did, when he received a message: police were at his uncle’s house. When he got there, Ahmed saw men in plainclothes, standing around the building’s gate. Inside, more men were searching the apartment. Three white men, who Ahmed guessed were Spanish, asked for his phone and started taking pictures of him. They told him to follow them…
Content type: Advocacy
Refugees are among the most vulnerable people in the world. From the moment they flee their homes, as they pass through 'temporary' places such as refugee camps and detention centres to their 'final' destinations, they are continuously exposed to threats. In the digital age, these threats are increasingly being driven by the processing of vast amounts of highly sensitive personal data: from enrollment and registration processes needed for them to access services, to their identification and…
Content type: Impact Case Study
What happened
Since the late 1980s governments across the world have been trying to build identity registries. By the early 1990s, there were similar policies being pursued by a number of governments across the Pacific region, with similar technologies from the same companies. In the mid-90s ID cards became a ‘modern’ policy, implementing smart cards. By 9/11 biometric IDs became the preferred solution to undefinable problems. Then came vast databases of biometrics to identify people — with…
Content type: Explainer
What is SOCMINT?
Social media intelligence (SOCMINT) refers to the techniques and technologies that allow companies or governments to monitor social media networking sites (SNSs), such as Facebook or Twitter.
SOCMINT includes monitoring of content, such as messages or images posted, and other data, which is generated when someone uses a social media networking site. This information involves person-to-person, person-to-group, group-to-group, and includes interactions that are private and…