We live in a surveillance society.
Whether on the streets or in the privacy of our own homes, states pay public money to private companies to spy on us. State espionage is nothing new – governments have a long history of spying on unruly populations to preempt and stamp out potential threats before they become a reality. Advances in digital technology in recent decades, however, have paved the way for states to surveil entire populations to an unprecedented and deeply concerning level. Whereas before governments spied on specific targets, digital technology means that they are now equipped to spy on all of us, all the time: everyone is a suspect, and no one is safe. George Orwell warned of a dystopian future where there were “always eyes watching you … asleep or awake, indoors or out of doors … [where] nothing was your own except the few cubic centimeters in your skull.” This dystopian future is now a reality. The development of digital surveillance and an ever-expanding market for high-tech wares, coupled with a seemingly unquestionable national security narrative and a tendency towards the privatization of public services, has meant that states now rely on multiple digital tools to monitor and control society. Facial recognition technology, phone data extraction tools, drones and CCTV cameras, among other surveillance technologies, are now routinely deployed to police populations, regardless of their impact on privacy and civil liberties. Since its onset, governments have used Covid-19 to justify an even greater reliance on digital surveillance, arguing that it is necessary to enforce social distancing measures. Drone flights have increased, including some with thermal imaging, Covid-19 tracker apps can monitor our every move and huge amounts of data are gathered about our daily lives. This is state surveillance on steroids. Similarly, profit hungry, high-tech companies have been quick to claim that biometric tools, such as facial recognition or retina scanners are as reliable and as necessary as ever before, taking advantage of a global health crisis to market their surveillance tools as part of the solution to a health problem. We all have a right to privacy. When this right is violated there are significant knock-on effects for the realization of other fundamental rights, such as the right to family life, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, movement, and religion. For those who are active in social movements, the knowledge that our every step is potentially being monitored can have a chilling effect on our activism and the form our political struggles take. This project focuses on three countries – France, Spain and the United Kingdom (UK) – where surveillance technologies have been routinely incorporated and normalised in policing, often reinforcing negative class and racial biases, without any meaningful public debate. We discuss the technologies used and their impact on a politically active civil society. We expose the massive profits being made by companies. Finally, we outline some recommendations that, if implemented, could turn the tide on mass surveillance.
Since its onset, governments have used Covid-19 to justify an even greater reliance on digital surveillance, arguing that it is necessary to enforce social distancing measures.
FOCUS COUNTRIES
- The Covid-19 pandemic has been used as a pretext to accelerate processes and policies regarding digital technologies and tools, although prior to Covid-19, the Spanish state had already taken steps to turn its security model into a model for mass surveillance
- The concept of the “Smart City” is an excuse to apply surveillance technologies on people that have been normalized and legitimized during the Health Crisis.
- Since 2018, Spain has participated in a project called AI MARS that aims to implement a surveillance and control system based on 5G, artificial intelligenceand facial recognition technology to identify “irregular” behaviour. Law Enforcement Agencies play a key role in this process.
- Surveillance and Control technologies have the potential to be connected to police centres of command and control, conferring more power upon the state and law enforcement agencies to control populations .
- The pandemic has served as a pretext for the deployment of new surveillance technologies, in particular drones. These devices have also been used to monitor demonstrations.
- The global security bill, which strengthens the powers of surveillance of many security actors in France, is denounced by many NGOs as a killer of freedom. The Bill will also legalise drone surveillance. the Council of State has already sanctioned the French police for having used this technology illegally several times.
- Facial recognition technology is still illegal in France but experimental use of this technology is increasing with the approach of the Olympic Games in Paris in 2024. Algorithms are now being deployed in many cities which – coupled with video surveillance – make it possible to identify vehicles or people.
- At the end of 2020, several decrees extended the powers of the intelligence services who can present extremely detailed files on people on the basis of their political ideas or for their simple participation in a demonstration.
- The United Kingdom (UK) has a reputation as a surveillance state, and with good reason: London has one CCTV camera for every 14 residents.
- The use of surveillance by the British state is nothing new. As a colonial power, the British Empire relied heavily on state surveillance for many centuries to bring occupied peoples under its control and pacify them. Today, surveillance is used in a racialised and classed way, to control certain populations within the UK
- There has been a legal framework in the UK since 2016 that gives police officers and intelligence officials the right to hack into computers, servers, networks or mobile devices, to download the data from mobile phones or use keyboard logging software that monitors every letter you type.
- Police are using terror legislation to carry out a ‘digital strip search’ of political organisers at UK borders. Police are using data extraction and cloud extraction technology to investigate seized devices. These technologies can retrieve data from third party server services. Private contractors working for UK police are also advertising that they can hack into secure messaging services such as Telegram.
- There is currently no law restricting the use of facial recognition technology (FRT) in the UK and therefore the technology has been deployed in crowded public streets by British police forces and a London council.
- The British Police are aware that Live Facial Recognition is inaccurate when identifying People of Colour, but this dangerously flawed technology is still being used.
- UK police forces have massively increased their use of drone technology during the Covid-19 lockdowns. Drones are now used routinely to monitor political protest.
- IMSI catchers are used to intercept mobile phone data of demonstrators in the UK. At least nine UK police forces are equipped with IMSI catcher technology.
TECHNOLOGIES
25 years after the UNDP Human Development Report which provided a fundamental Human Security Framework based on two key aspects: freedom from fear, intrinsically related to the any threat to human life and physical integrity; and freedom from want understood as the fulfillment of basic human needs (food, health and education), we are today still struggling to incorporate new notions of security interrelated with human rights and development.
The reason for this challenge is the influence of the industrial military-complex and the symbiotic relation with governments. This relation imposes a military and technical security approach to confront the threats that humanity is facing, which marginalize non-military, nonviolent and conflict transformation strategies.
COMPANIES
25 years after the UNDP Human Development Report which provided a fundamental Human Security Framework based on two key aspects: freedom from fear, intrinsically related to the any threat to human life and physical integrity; and freedom from want understood as the fulfillment of basic human needs (food, health and education), we are today still struggling to incorporate new notions of security interrelated with human rights and development.
The reason for this challenge is the influence of the industrial military-complex and the symbiotic relation with governments. This relation imposes a military and technical security approach to confront the threats that humanity is facing, which marginalize non-military, nonviolent and conflict transformation strategies.
A ROADMAP
TO DIGITAL
HUMAN SECURITY
25 years after the UNDP Human Development Report which provided a fundamental Human Security Framework based on two dimensions: freedom from fear, intrinsically related to any threat to human life and physical integrity; and freedom from want understood as the fulfilment of basic human needs (food, health and education). However, we are still today struggling to incorporate new notions of security interrelated with human rights and development.
One of the reasons for this challenge is the symbiotic relation between governments and the industrial military-complex, which imposes a military and technical security approach to confront the threats that humanity is facing, marginalizing more sustainable non-military, nonviolent and conflict transformation solutions.
Hence, the emergency crisis of Covid-19 has created the opportunity for these types of public-private partnerships to accelerate the penetration of military technologies to surveil and control dissident voices, undermining civil liberties and digital rights.
But the relationship with technology can be either an experience of violation or it could be transformative. The digital realm is empowering activists, connecting struggles and providing spaces for the sharing of alternative narratives to the hegemonic discourse, organizing advocacy action and movement building. Thus, we should build safe and radically democratic digital environments to exercise our human rights and fulfil our human needs. A roadmap to digital security must to be traced considering the following recommendations:
Recommendations addressed to public authorities:
● Protect digital rights: We demand the use of democratic technologies in public spaces that respect the right to privacy, recognition and data agency by citizens.
● Ban Biometric Mass Surveillance: Facial Recognition technologies and other tools that utilise biometric data are highly intrusive to the daily life of people and violate fundamental rights.
● Ban invasive mobile data extraction practices that are used to target social movement activists, racialized communities and migrants.
● Increase transparency of the methodologies, processes and applications of digital technologies to understand which information is used and which decisions are going to be taken.
● Ban technologies “tested in combat” against unarmed civilian population in armed conflicts and occupation contexts by assessing the innovation, manufacturing and exporting processes of products from military, security and cyber security companies by public and civil society initiatives.
● Limit the access of Israeli military, security and cybersecurity companies to EU and member states public procurement processes by considering the UN database of business involved in illegal Israeli settlements and its relation with the occupation of Palestine.
● Curb corporate influence on public security and create spaces for further cooperation with civil society sector in this domain and especially in the development of Smart City and Safe City models. Civil society approaches to security could integrate social and political dynamics analysis; non-military, mediation and nonviolent strategies; and bottom-up processes including the voice of vulnerable groups in societies.
Recommendations addressed to social movements, activists and general public:
● Protect yourself from the surveillance state by improving digital competences and security. More information at: www.privacytools.io; www.eff.org/pages/tools; www.securityinabox.org/en
● Promote and participate public debates in your community on: how surveillance digital technologies are designed and operate; which data is collected and how is processed; and which impact they have on civil liberties;
● Demand the use of democratic technologies in your community and municipality by claiming responsible public procurement that promote human rights and environmental protection;