M A S S   S U R V E I L L A N C E

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.

States have used Covid-19 as a pretext to justify an even greater reliance on digital surveillance, which is often implemented in a classed and racialised way.

COUNTRIES UNDER STUDY

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.
UK
France
Spain
Spain
  • 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 .
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France
  • 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.
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UK
  •  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.
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Drone flights have increased, Covid-19 tracking applications have been implemented, which are liable to monitor all of our movements and get huge amounts of data about people’s daily lives. One of the most invasive technologies is the use of biometric facial recognition tools or retinal scanners.

TECHNOLOGIES

Surveillance of public space: CCTV and audio record systems

“Cameras often broadcast footage over the Internet, allowing operators to monitor security camera feeds remotely. In some cases, surveillance systems are paid for and operated by the cities themselves. But in other cases, residents and businesses share surveillance camera footage with police officers”. Electronic Frontier Foundation

About: CCTV, also known as closed-circuit television, is a monitoring system that enables public bodies and private companies to always keep a watchful eye on us (some of them can have an “ear” too) . CCTV security systems contain monitors and cameras that allow you to view live events, as well as recording that archive footage for later use.

How does it work? A live camera is picking up on several images and audio that are later transmitted by cable or wirelessly as a signal to a screen. At the CCTV centre there may      be recording and display devices that store all data observed by cameras.

What’s wrong with it? Besides the clear privacy concerns, one of the strongest criticisms of CCTV cameras is that they have not been proven effective, one of the main reasons for cameras to be deployed is to reduce petty crime. But CCTV’s effectiveness at doing this has not yet been demonstrated. Most of all though, with CCTV technology there is less freedom. When citizens are being watched by the authorities they are more self-conscious and less free.

More info at:

ACLU

EFF

Crime predictions software

“Crime prediction technology reproduces injustices and causes real harm”. Coalition for critical technology

About: Predictive policing is software used by law enforcement agencies to select neighbourhoods, streets or blocks where they should focus resources or to identify individuals for investigation. Law enforcement agents feed records and data into algorithms that eventually will predict in which area a crime is supposedly more likely to happen.

How does it work? Predictive policing analyses a massive amount of information to infer when and in which locations crime is likely to occur. Then, the algorithm will tell the police department to dispatch officers to a specific place on a specific time or day, looking for potential offenders.  This means that police are predisposed to be suspicious of everyone who happens to be in that area at that time. In summary, predictive policing software takes an average of where arrests and crimes have already happened, and tells police to go back there.

Why is this wrong? Predictive policing only accounts for crimes that are reported, and concentrates policing resources in those communities. This makes it more likely that police may uncover other ‘crimes’. This creates a feedback loop that makes predictive policing a self-fulfilling prophecy and eventually reinforce racial biases and criminalises specific groups. Most of the time these are extremely vulnerable groups. These practices tend often to materialize in Law Enforcement Agencies racial profile controls.

More info at:

VICE | Florida Tech Online | The Verge

Drones surveillance

“With its capacity for precise zooming at short distances, aerial surveillance can, in combination with other automated identification technologies, allow for effortless cataloguing of individuals and their activities.” POGO (The Project On Government Oversight)

About: Drone surveillance is the use of unpiloted or unpiloted aerial vehicles (UAV) to capture images and video to gather information about specific targets, which might be individuals, groups or environments. There are hundreds of different types of drones. They can be as large as commercial aircraft or as small as a housefly, and include human remotely guided aircraft as well as autonomous, self-guided vehicles.

How do they work? Drones can be operated by individuals and private companies. They may be fitted with high resolution thermal imaging cameras, or even with Facial Recognition Technology and audio equipment. Individuals can operate the drones using remote controls or through smartphones.

Why is this wrong? Our privacy is violated by unwanted flying guests that can record movement and capture images at any time, without our knowledge or permission. Drone Surveillance has a strong chilling effect on populations. It is well researched that people who are being observed tend to behave differently than when they are not being watched.

Drone technology can be used in a classed and racialised way to spy on particular populations, and to monitor political organisers.

More info at:

EFF | Surveillance Drones

ACLU | Protecting Privacy From Aerial Surveillance: Recommendations for Government Use of Drone Aircraft

POGO (Project On Government Oversight) | These Police Drones are Watching You

ACLU | Protecting Privacy From Aerial Surveillance: Recommendations for Government Use of Drone Aircraft

Automatic number plate recognition (ANPR)

“The information captured by the readers—including the license plate number and the date, time, and location of every scan—is being collected and sometimes pooled into regional sharing systems. As a result, enormous databases of innocent motorists’ location information are growing rapidly. This information is often retained for years, or even indefinitely, with few or no restrictions to protect” ACLU (The American Civil Liberties Union)

About: Automatic Number Plate Recognition, is a technology that automatically recognises vehicle number plates. ANPR uses images from CCTV cameras controlled by police forces, local authorities, and private companies. This technology allows police to track vehicles in real time.

How does it work? As a vehicle passes an ANPR camera, its registration number is read and instantly checked against police database records of vehicles of interest. A record for all vehicles passing by a camera is stored, including those for vehicles that are not known to be of interest.

Why is this wrong? Through ANPR Technology, police and state agencies have the ability to build detailed pictures of our lives based on information they compile in their databases. Location data can reveal extremely sensitive information about who we are and what we do.

More info at:

No-cctv.| What’s Wrong with ANPR

Crime and Justice | What’s wrong with ANPR?

The conversation |Number plate recognition: the technology behind the rhetoric

ACLU  | You are being tracked: How License Plate Readers Are Being Used To Record Americans’ Movements

Facial recognition and biometric technology: data gathering

“Live facial recognition in public spaces is a mass surveillance method and a huge expansion of the surveillance state. It inverts the vital democratic principle of suspicion preceding surveillance, treating populations like suspects” Bigbrother Watch UK

About: Facial recognition is a biometric identification tool used to identify a subject through an image or video of the target person’s face. This identification is often used to access an application, system, or service.

FRT is an expanding technology, used for example by Facebook to tag you in photos from your parents’ wedding anniversary, integrated as a security key into many smartphones and tablets and into an increasing number of home appliances. It is used to recognize your face at airports, and verify your transactions by some websites and shops.

How does it work? When used by police forces, Facial recognition systems capture an incoming image or footage. This footage is compared with police databases, which are able to verify that the biometric data of the person matches with the database footage.

Why is this wrong? Facial recognition technology allows companies and states to take the surveillance of populations to an unprecedented level, and to use that information to implement even more oppressive systems of social control. FRT technology can be used to target people who are involved in social movements, and to enforce racial segregation of populations. It’s an indiscriminate surveillance tool as it can be used to monitor everyone all the time and in the vast majority of countries where this technology is used, it operates without a clear legal or regulatory framework. This legal vacuum opens the door to abuse.

More info at:

Forbes | The Major Concerns Around Facial Recognition Technology

Electronic identification  | Face Recognition: how it works and its safety

The documentary, Coded Bias (2020),

IMSI Catchers

“If law enforcement already knows the IMSI number of a specific phone and person they are trying to locate, they can program that IMSI number into the [IMSI-catcher] and it will tell them if that phone is nearby.” The Intercept

About: An IMSI-catcher (IMSI stands for International Mobile Subscriber Identity also known as “Stingrays”) is a surveillance tool secretly used by law enforcement agencies to monitor phones. This technology can be used to track who attends political demonstrations or public events. It allows whoever is using it, to access – and even edit – your calls and messages.

How does it work? IMSI-catchers are devices that act like fake cell towers, tricking phones to connect to them and enabling them to take a record of all phones in the area. When a phone connects to the fake phone tower, the IMSI number is revealed and the police can find out a person’s identity, and access and record all the device’s communications. This way all of the target’s communications go through the IMSI-catcher and can be collected, read and listened to.

Why is this wrong? IMSI catchers are intrusive surveillance tools whose use remains unregulated. They are often deployed in secret, without a clear legal basis, and without safeguards and oversight mechanisms. Their use infringes the right to privacy, freedom of expression, and freedom of assembly and association.

More info at:

Privacy International | IMSI Catchers

Privacy International | IMSI Catchers Analysis (pdf)

The Intercept | How Cops Can Secretly Track Your Phone

Smart Phones and data extraction

About: Mobile Phone Extraction technology refers to the physical connection of the mobile device that is to be analyzed and an external device that extracts, analyses and presents the data contained on the targeted phone. A large number of companies supply technology to police forces to extract data from electronic device.

According to Privacy International “Cloud extraction (or cloud analytics) is the ability to access, extract, analyse and retain data stored in the Cloud, a term widely used by technology companies to refer to the storage of data remotely, from applications or devices, typically on a third company’s servers. Examples include Dropbox, Slack, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Google products such as My Activity, Uber and Hotmail”.

How does it work?: By connecting to a confiscated smartphone (or similar device) to a, police and other state agencies can download all of its data and contents. A report is generated, which can provide details of text messages, location, and call history. Cloud Extraction technology can even access third-party apps, such as WhatsApp and Facebook.

Why is this wrong? Data extraction technology means that police are able to perform a digital strip search of individuals. Downloading data from a person’s phone can reveal deeply personal data, and allows state agencies to reach even further into our private lives. This technology is used disproportionately against certain communities, and can be used to repress dissent.

The technology available currently means that it is not possible to isolate specific data. So, police law  have access to unlimited amounts of data from the user’s device.All data is extracted, regardless of whether it is relevant to the situation at hand. Currently, there is no clear legal guidance about how this info should be kept, how much info can be extracted and when this extraction is allowed.

After the data is extracted, all the info is stored by law enforcement agencies on their databases, most of the time unencrypted and easily accessible, and often without a judicial order.

More info at:

Privacy International | What types of data can law enforcement extract my phone

Privacy International |A technical look at Phone Extraction

Privacy International | What types of data can law enforncement extract my phone

Government hacking: spy hardware and data extraction

“A growing number of governments around the world, including the UK, are embracing hacking to facilitate their surveillance activities. Yet hacking presents unique and grave threats to our privacy and security. It is far more intrusive than any other surveillance technique, capable of accessing information sufficient to build a detailed profile of a person, as well as altering or deleting that information. At the same time, hacking not only undermines the security of targeted systems, but also has the potential to compromise the internet as a whole. For these reasons, Privacy International has focused sustained attention on this issue and has been challenging these powers through litigation.” Caroline Wilson Palow, Legal Director of Privacy International

About: Government hacking refers to governments exploiting vulnerabilities in systems such as smartphones and laptops (social media, emails) to gain access to information      that is otherwise encrypted or inaccessible.

How does it work?: Deploying malware – a computer programme designed to infiltrate a user’s device. Malware may alter the device in order to control and surveil personal data and the user’s digital activity.

Why is this wrong? Hacking our devices represents an attack on our privacy. It also puts huge power in the hands of states, who are able to use the data gathered to control populations.

More info at:

Privacy International | Government Hacking

Access Now | Government Hacking (pdf)

CASE STUDIES

SAFE CITY PROJECT: NICE, FRENCH CAPITAL OF SURVEILLANCE

The southern city of Nice – France’s fifth largest city, in terms of population – is today the most closely guarded in France with more than 3,000 CCTV cameras.

In 2008, its mayor, Christian Estrosi, made digital surveillance a priority. In 2016, after the attacks of July 14 which left 86 people dead in Nice, he took a new step and relied on more intrusive technologies.

The city uses several automatic image analysis software packages. The community has installed dozens of alert buttons at local merchants and attempted to deploy a reporting application. Nice was the first city to have experimented with facial recognition in France in 2019. The city was also involved in a failed facial recognition project in high schools.

DRONES SURVEILLANCE ON MASS EVENTS AND EVICTIONS

During lockdown in Spain several law enforcement agencies have been using drone technology to control and surveil population. Drones have been used by many local police forces to inform citizens as well as monitor evictions and mass events. Some of the drones that have been set in motion, such as those of the Municipal Police of Madrid, are even equipped with thermal imaging cameras, capable of measuring body temperature to detect people with fever, regardless of whether this was the result of Covid-19 or other more frequent infections.

But the pandemic has only exacerbated the growing trend of the use of drones as a control mechanism, which, in the Spanish State, began in 2018 when the Catalan police used drones to control airspace during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. In October 2019, the regional police used their six DJI drones to monitor large demonstrations against the sentencing that condemned Catalan politicians and sovereigntist leaders to prison. These remotely controlled aircraft provide complementary images to those of the police helicopter, which is also equipped with high-resolution cameras.

MONITORING UK DEMONSTRATIONS USING LIVE FACIAL RECOGNITION

Police in the UK have already Live Facial Recognition (LFR) to monitor political protest,  and at the policing of large public events.

For example, South Wales Police has used LFR on at least 61 occasions since 2017 at concerts, shopping centres, sporting events and at least one political protest. In 2018, this police force arrested 22 people after they were identified through facial recognition technology.

The use of LFR against antimilitarist demonstrators at a protest held outside the DPRTE arms exhibition at Cardiff’s Motorpoint Arena signalled a new phase of high-tech police repression of protest in the UK and made clear that one of the functions of LFR for police forces in the UK is the control of political dissent.

Additionally, all UK police forces currently have the ability to make searches of the Police National Database (PND) using facial recognition technology, that gives police the capability to match CCTV images with images stored on the PND. This is referred to as ‘facial searching’. The database includes images of people who have never been convicted of any crime.

THE UK POLICE’S ‘DIGITAL STRIP SEARCH

When people are arrested, stopped at UK borders or their houses are raided, the police often use powers to seize phones, tablets, computers, memory cards and SIM cards, and keep them to try to extract information. This procedure amounts to a ‘digital strip search’ by police officers. The extraction procedure is carried out with software developed by companies such as the Israeli company Cellebrite, used by many police forces around the world to unlock smartphones and extract data.

British police are making use of Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act to seize devices at UK borders. Schedule 7 came into force as part of the UK’s Terrorism Act in 2000 and allows the police to stop people on arrival to, or departure from, the UK and question them in order to determine whether they might be involved preparing terrorist acts. Unlike other powers of police questioning, under Schedule 7 it is illegal to answer ‘No Comment’ or not to respond. People may be arrested, prosecuted and imprisoned if they refuse to give an answer.

Although – in theory – the questions have to be related to the investigation of terrorism, in reality people have been asked questions on a range of subjects unrelated to outlawed ‘terrorist’ organisations. For example, people have been questioned about their religious beliefs, personal life, participation in protests and political organising. Under Schedule 7, the police also have the power to confiscate electronic devices and demand passwords, and have the power to arrest if passwords are not given.

According to Kevin Blowe, coordinator of Network for Police Monitoring (Netpol): “By far the greatest use of Schedule 7 is against Muslims with political views, especially on foreign policy or security issues. It is a fundamentally Islamophobic policing power. However, as a tool, this power is targeting surveillance at anyone whose politics have the imagination to look beyond borders: so solidarity with migrants or independence struggles, such as the Palestinians or the Kurds. This also means gatherings of campaigners from different countries who reject capitalism’s role in solutions to climate change, conflict or global poverty. This is why it is impossible to see the use of Schedule 7 as anything other than blatant political policing.”

OPERATION PANDORA: INTERCEPTION OF COMMUNICATIONS OF POLITICAL ACTIVISTS IN SPAIN

The monitoring of activists by the police forces in Spain is far from being an anecdote. However, some cases deserve special mention because of their seriousness and their enormously damaging consequences for the right to privacy and the secrecy of communications. Surveillance through the interception of communications and the extraction of data from personal devices, such as mobile phones, tablets and computers has been particularly harsh against politically organized anarchism and Basque and Catalan pro-independence movements, although also union leaders and other political activists have been monitored in this way.

Between 2013 and 2015, 68 people were arrested in a series of macro-operations against anarchist groups. Some of the people arrested had been subjected for a long time, even for years, to particularly invasive and damaging police tapping, where most of the conversations presented as evidence in court were of an intimate nature or related to her affective and friendship networks. Another of the most recent cases of police wiretapping of political dissidents was the investigation against the so-called Committees in Defence of the Republic (CDR), Catalan pro-independence grassroots groups, which involved the placement of GPS devices on vehicles in order to to track their movements.

THE CASE OF LISA: ILLEGAL GATHERING OF DNA

Catalan regional police have admitted that they stole personal objects -such as toothbrushes- from political activists, in order to extract their DNA. The use of this method by the police in Catalonia to increase control over social movements was just a rumour until it was corroborated in the trial against Lisa, a German anarchist accused of a bank robbery. According to her lawyers, genetic profiles were obtained potentially illegally and without the authorisation of a judge. But the testing ground for collecting DNA for political reasons has historically been the Basque country, where police began to use -in the early 2000’s- genetic testing to indict dozens of young people in court proceedings, which have resulted in some of these people still serving long prison sentences of 20 and 30 years.

The use of NSO group technology against catalan independence leaders

In the summer of 2020, an investigation from CitizenLab exposed the use of “Pegasus spyware” to spy on the archives, photographs, web browsing history, emails and other data of pro-independence Catalan politicians and activists, including the Catalan Parliament president Roger Torrent. President Torrent’s phone would have been infiltrated through a missed call to his Whatsapp in 2019, and he immediately pointed out that the Spanish state was behind the attack on his phone, and that he believed it had most likely occurred without a court order. In fact, according to a former NSO employee, the spyware was acquired by Spanish security services through its Ministry of Interior in 2015.

The NSO Group itself offered states, as part of the pandemic management services, a new big data analysis tool to map the movement of people and their contacts, with the aim of helping to curb the virus.  In recent times, activists and lawyers have detected an adaptation of classic techniques such as police monitoring of the digital environment through the use of phishing technologies, mail spoofing and digital infiltration through e-mail and messaging networks such as Whatsapp or Telegram. In October 2020, the grassroots Catalan newspaper La Directa released information concerning the spoofing of at least 11 email accounts of political organisations, youth movements, community meeting places and housing unions. More than 60 fake emails were sent with the clear objective of gathering information on the activities and internal documents of these organisations.

COMPANIES

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. 

WIRELESS LOGIC

HEADQUARTERS: UK
TECH DEVELOPED: Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology
PRESENCE: contracted by UK Police forces.

XIPTIC SOLUCIONS

HEADQUARTERS: Spain
TECH DEVELOPED: Facial recognition technology for access control and physical presence.
PRESENCE: In Spain Xiptic Solutions is contracted by a High School in Catalonia.

YUNEEC

HEADQUARTERS: China
TECH DEVELOPED: Drones
PRESENCE: In the UK Yuneec is contracted by South Wales Police and Hampshire Police.

VOYAGER LABS

HEADQUARTERS: Israel
TECH DEVELOPED: Voyager Analytics”, a system able to analyse data to try to determine the relationship networks, behaviour and preferences of a particular individual, the interests of a group, the links it has and its members as well as the role each of them plays, and key event figures and to what extent they may be a threat. The company also produces a system called “Voyager Check”, which uses machine learning and natural language algorithms to generate alerts or answer specific questions.
PRESENCE: Spain, contracted by the Catalan Police, the Centre of Communications and Technology of Catalonia.
PARTNERS: S21sec (distributor)

VODAFONE

HEADQUARTERS: UK
TECH DEVELOPED: Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology
PRESENCE: contracted by UK Police forces.

VERIDAS

HEADQUARTERS: Spain
TECH DEVELOPED: Face biometrics and Voice biometrics identification technologies.
PRESENCE: Spain, contracted by the BBVA Bank.
PARTNERS: Business relationships with das-NANO and BBVA Bank

THALES SA

HEADQUARTERS: France
TECH DEVELOPED: Facial recognition technology
PRESENCE: Worldwide. In Spain Thales is contracted by the Madrid Barajas Airport and used at the Ceuta and Melilla borders. In France, the company has developed ‘Safe City’ projects as well drones. In September 2020, Watchkeeper WK 450 drone, design by Thales and Elbit, was used by the British army in a surveillance operation of the British and French borders.
PARTNERS: Its Facial Recognition Technology is developed through a subsidiary called Thales Digital Identity and Security. The company has a strong relationship with IECISA and Gunnebo. Thales acquired Gemalto in 2019, the Franco-Dutch biometrics specialist

TELENT TECHNOLOGY SERVICES

HEADQUARTERS: UK
TECH DEVELOPED: Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology
PRESENCE: contracted by UK Police forces.

SOFTCAT PLC

HEADQUARTERS: UK
TECH DEVELOPED: Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology
PRESENCE: contracted by UK Police forces.

SPECIALIST COMPUTER SERVICES PLC

HEADQUARTERS: UK
TECH DEVELOPED: Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology
PRESENCE: contracted by UK Police forces.

SOCIEDAD IBÉRICA DE CONSTRUCCIONES ELÉCTRICAS, S.A. -SICE- owned by ACS Group

HEADQUARTERS: Spain
TECH DEVELOPED: Surveillance cameras which can detect human behaviours.
PRESENCE: Spain, contracted by Madrid municipality.

SEVEN TECHNOLOGIES OWNED BY DATONG PLC

HEADQUARTERS: UK
TECH DEVELOPED: IMSI-catcher technology
PRESENCE: In the UK Seven Technologies is contracted by the Metropolitan Police

S21SEC

HEADQUARTERS: Spain
TECH DEVELOPED: Digital platform for the exploitation and analysis of open and private information sources.
PRESENCE: Spain, contracted by the Catalan Police “Mossos d’ Esquadra” and participating in a EU funded project called Caper.
PARTNERS: Strong relation with Voyager Labs

QRO EQUIPMENT/ PETARDS

HEADQUARTERS: UK
TECH DEVELOPED: Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology
PRESENCE: contracted by UK Police forces.

PAUKNER GROUP

HEADQUARTERS: Spain
TECH DEVELOPED: Drones
PRESENCE: Spain, contracted by Guardia Civil.

PARROT

HEADQUARTERS: France
TECH DEVELOPED: Drones
PRESENCE: In the UK Parrot is contracted by South Wales Police. In France, the company supplies drones to the French Ministry of the Armed Forces. Parrot’s drones are designed to be used for reconnaissance and intelligence missions. Parrot’s ANAFI drones weigh less than 500 grams, can operate autonomously for 30 minutes and can fly day and night. They are “able to detect human-sized targets with great precision, up to two kilometres away.

PARK PLACE TECHNOLOGIES

HEADQUARTERS: US
TECH DEVELOPED: Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology
PRESENCE: Contracted by UK Police forces.

OXYGEN FORENSICS

HEADQUARTERS: US
TECH DEVELOPED: Digital forensic data extraction technology, which can extract data from mobile devices, from cloud storage, drones and Internet of Things data.
PRESENCE: In the UK the Metropolitan Police Service lists Oxygen Forensics as one of its customers.
PARTNERS: ElcomSoft

ORACLE

HEADQUARTERS: UK
TECH DEVELOPED: Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology
PRESENCE: contracted by UK Police forces.

OPENTEXT

HEADQUARTERS: Canada
TECH DEVELOPED: EnCase technology, which can crack passwords and extract data from a wide range of mobile devices.
PRESENCE: In the UK it has been contracted by Cambridgeshire Police and Police Scotland.

OMNIVISION SEGURIDAD

HEADQUARTERS: Spain
TECH DEVELOPED: Photography systems, based in artificial intelligence, integrated in vehicles and automatic number plate recognition system.
PRESENCE: Spain, contracted by Guardia Civil.

OMEGA SECURITY

HEADQUARTERS: UK
TECH DEVELOPED: Facial Recognition Technology
PRESENCE: In the UK Omega Security was contracted by the Bradford’s Broadway Shopping Centre for FRT trial with Axis Communications, Customer Clever.
PARTNERS: Axis Communications, Customer Clever.

NSO GROUP

HEADQUARTERS: Israel
TECH DEVELOPED: Pegasus Spyware, a surveillance software able to access mobile data and activate functions like camera or microphone in background.
PRESENCE: 45 countries, including Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Spain. In Spain, Pegasus was contracted by the Spanish government in 2015 to spy on Catalan politicians.
PARTNERS: “Circles”.

NORTHGATE PUBLIC SERVICES Owned by NEC

HEADQUARTERS: UK Owned by NEC (Japan)
TECH DEVELOPED: storage solutions for Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology data.
PRESENCE: In the UK Northgate was contracted historically by the National Police Improvement Agency (NPIA)

NICE Ltd.

HEADQUARTERS: Israel
TECH DEVELOPED: NICE Investigate platform, a data collection and storage software for Police forces.
PRESENCE: contracted by at least 15 UK police forces including: Cleveland Police, Lancashire Police, Hampshire Constabulary, Thames Valley Police, Surrey Police and Sussex Police. NICE’s technology is also used in Israel, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

NET VIEW SYSTEMS

HEADQUARTERS: UK
TECH DEVELOPED: Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology
PRESENCE: Contracted by UK Police forces.

MAGNET FORENSICS

HEADQUARTERS: US
TECH DEVELOPED: AXIOM technology, a platform for recovering digital evidence.
PRESENCE: UK, contracted by the Metropolitan Police
PARTNERS: Grayshift

NEOLOGY

HEADQUARTERS: UK
TECH DEVELOPED: : Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology
PRESENCE: contracted by UK Police forces.

NEC

HEADQUARTERS: Japan
TECH DEVELOPED: Facial Recognition Technology
PRESENCE: In the UK NEC is contracted by South Wales Police and the Metropolitan Police. It supplied technology to private company Argent to use in London’s King’s Cross Estate.

NDI RECOGNITION SYSTEMS

HEADQUARTERS: US
TECH DEVELOPED: Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology
PRESENCE: contracted by UK Police forces.

MSAB

HEADQUARTERS: Sweden
TECH DEVELOPED: XRY cloud data extraction technology.
PRESENCE: Contracted by 97% of UK Police Forces.

L3HARRIS

HEADQUARTERS: US
TECH DEVELOPED: IMSI-catcher technology: Kingfish, StingRay and Crossbow
PRESENCE: UK police

JENOPTIK TRAFFIC SOLUTIONS (UK) owned by JENOPTIK (Germany)

HEADQUARTERS: Germany
TECH DEVELOPED: Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology
PRESENCE: contracted by UK Police forces.

INSIKT INTELLIGENCE

HEADQUARTERS: Spain
TECH DEVELOPED: intelligence platform called “INVISO”, for the real-time detection of
Jihadist radicals on social media platforms.
PRESENCE: Spain. Insikt participates in several EU funded projects which are also participated in by the Spanish Guardia Civil.

INSIGHT DIRECT

HEADQUARTERS: US
TECH DEVELOPED: Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology
PRESENCE: contracted by UK Police forces.

INDIGOVISION

HEADQUARTERS: UK
TECH DEVELOPED: CCTV software, which integrates AnyVision FRT. Body worn cameras for police officers.
PRESENCE: in the UK IndigoVision is contracted by several police forces, local councils, airports and other private companies such as the Birmingham Airport, the NHS and London City Airport.
PARTNERS: The company is owned by Motorola Solutions (US) and partners with BriefCam (Israel) and AnyVision (Israel).

IDEMIA

HEADQUARTERS: France
TECH DEVELOPED: “Biometric Technology”. Idemia has developed two software programmes. The first is capable of automatically detecting license plates and images and identifying the colour and he make of the vehicle. The second system is responsible for detecting behaviour defined as suspicious or dangerous.
PRESENCE: Worldwide
PARTNERS: Thales. Idema was awarded – along with another French company, Sopra Steria – a project to create a biometric database for border controls in the Schengen area by the European Union. The project is scheduled to start in 2022.

HUAWEI

HEADQUARTERS: China
TECH DEVELOPED: “Video Surveillance with facial recognition technology”
PRESENCE: Worldwide. In France, present in the city of Valenciennes. In Spain, the municipality of Barcelona signed an agreement with Huawei during the Mobile World Expo of 2019.

HIKVISION

HEADQUARTERS: China
TECH DEVELOPED: “Video Surveillance with facial recognition technology”
PRESENCE: Worldwide. In France, present in the city of Valenciennes. In Spain, the municipality of Barcelona signed an agreement with Huawei during the Mobile World Expo of 2019.

HERTA SECURITY

HEADQUARTERS: Spain
TECH DEVELOPED: Facial recognition technology
PRESENCE: Spain, Uruguay, Thailand. In Spain it has been contracted by the Casino Gran Madrid and the Madrid Central Bus Station.

GRUPO SABICO

HEADQUARTERS: Spain
TECH DEVELOPED: Facial recognition system for CCTV camaras.
PRESENCE: Spain, used in the Motorbikes World Championship Grand Prix in Aragon.
PARTNERS: Avigilon (Motorola Solutions)

GRUPO EXCEM

HEADQUARTERS: Spain
TECH DEVELOPED: System for the monitoring and interception of communications named SILTEC by the Catalan Interior Department.
PRESENCE: Spain, China, France, the US and Israel. In Spain the company has been contracted by the Catalan Interior Department as well as supporting the Spanish Army’s maintenance of the Israeli VERINT platform.
In the Corporate Social Responsibility section of its website, it lists the institutions it has supported. Most of these institutions are Israeli universities.

GROUPE SÉCURITÉ SERVICE INDUSTRIE (GSSI)

HEADQUARTERS: France
TECH DEVELOPED: Produces the pocket-sized Suricatch, which gathers a phone’s International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) data and International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMS).
PRESENCE: In the UK GSSI is contracted by Leicestershire Police, Thames Valley Police and Merseyside Police.

GRAYSHIFT

HEADQUARTERS: US
TECH DEVELOPED: GrayKey technology, an iPhone data extraction software.
PRESENCE: 25 countries worldwide. In the UK, it has been contracted by Lancashire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire Police Forces.
PARTNERS: Magnet Forensics

GENETEC

HEADQUARTERS: Canada
TECH DEVELOPED: Provides AnyVision’s Better Tomorrow facial recognition software to its customers.
PRESENCE: In the UK Genetec is contracted by Hertfordshire Police and Manchester City Council.
PARTNERS: AnyVision

GDU Tech

HEADQUARTERS: China
TECH DEVELOPED: GDU SAGA drone, with an integrated speaker to make announcements and Thermal Imaging Camera to take body temperature remotely.
PRESENCE: Spain, contracted by law enforcement agencies in Spanish local councils (Madrid, Barcelona, Parets del Valles, Sabadell and Matadepera).
PARTNERS: Droneless

FORTIER EUROPE

HEADQUARTERS: Spain
TECH DEVELOPED: Distributor in Spain and Switzerland for high-end professional equipment in audio, video and telecommunications, such as the “Egobox”, a system that allows the recording of audio discreetly and over long distances.
PRESENCE: Spain, contracted by several national and local Spanish Law Enforcement Agencies.
PARTNERS: The company has a strong relationship with British Cedar Surveillance

FLOREAT ENERGIES

HEADQUARTERS: UK
TECH DEVELOPED: Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology
PRESENCE: Contracted by UK Police forces.

FLIR

HEADQUARTERS: US
TECH DEVELOPED: Arms company, developing thermal imaging technology compatible with some DJI and Parrot drones.
PRESENCE: DJI and Parrot drones are used by several UK police forces.

FEDERAL SIGNAL

HEADQUARTERS: US
TECH DEVELOPED: “ATENEA” an integrated system that control all signalling and surveillance tools in an emergency and/or police vehicle. “FEDRECOGNITION” for automatic number plate recognition system.
PRESENCE: Spain, contracted by Guardia Urbana of Barcelona.

FACEWATCH INTERNATIONAL LTD

HEADQUARTERS: UK
TECH DEVELOPED: Facial Recognition Technology (FRT)
PRESENCE: In the UK FaceWatch’s FRT is used by Gordon’s Wine Bars. The company has trialled its technology for several UK police forces and local councils. The company has also exported FRT to Brazil.

FACEPHI BIOMETRIA

HEADQUARTERS: Spain
TECH DEVELOPED: “SelPhi” facial recognition technology for banks.
PRESENCE: Spain, contracted by CaixaBank.

EYESIGHT TECHNOLOGIES

HEADQUARTERS: Israel
TECH DEVELOPED: “Driver Sense”, driver monitoring system that analyzes eyes, eyelids, pupils, head position and look of the driver to determine their degree of attention in driving and alert them to distractions and drowsiness.
PRESENCE: Spain
PARTNERS: Business relationship with Antolin Group in Spain.

EVOLVE DYNAMICS

HEADQUARTERS: UK
TECH DEVELOPED: “Sky Mantis drone”, which has a thermal imaging camera.
PRESENCE: contracted by Gwent and Norfolk Police in the UK.

EVITECH

HEADQUARTERS: France
TECH DEVELOPED: “Intelligent Video Surveillance Software”
PRESENCE: In France, present in the port of Lyon since 2010.

EUROCOP SECURITY SYSTEMS

HEADQUARTERS: Spain
TECH DEVELOPED: “EuroCop Pred-Crime”, system for the ‘Prediction and Prevention of Crime’.
PRESENCE: Spain, contracted by the Castellon Local Police.

ELCOMSOFT

HEADQUARTERS: Russia
TECH DEVELOPED: : its technology can “enable experts to gain access to password-protected, locked and encrypted information contained in a range of mobile devices and cloud services”
PRESENCE: In the UK it has been contracted by the Scottish Police Authority, Hampshire Police, Bedfordshire Police, Northern Ireland Police, the Ministry of Defense, National Crime Agency and the Serious Fraud Office.
PARTNERS: Oxygen Forensics

ELBIT SYSTEMS

HEADQUARTERS: Israel
TECH DEVELOPED: Drones
PRESENCE: In the UK Elbit is contracted by the British Maritime and Coastguard agency. The UK’s National Police Air Service (NPAS) has used Elbit drones for trials.
PARTNERS: Elbit developed the UK’s Watchkeeper drone in partnership with Thales (France). Elbit is a major drones provider to Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

DJI TECHNOLOGY

HEADQUARTERS: China
TECH DEVELOPED: Drones
PRESENCE: Contracted by several UK Police Forces including police in South Wales, Kent, Cleveland, Devon and Cornwall, Lincolnshire, Liverpool and Derbyshire. In Spain, the Military Emergency Unit contracted two units of Agras drone for fumigation in the fight against coronavirus and in 2019 DJI drones were used to monitor demonstrations that condemned Catalan politicians to prison. In France, DJI drones were used during the Coronavirus lockdown. In Iraq DJI drones were used by Daesh/ISIS as explosive devices. In Israel the company’s drones have been used to release tear gas on Great March of Return protesters in Gaza. DJI’s drones have also been used in the surveillance of Palestinian refugee camps in East Jerusalem, and the repression of anti-occupation demonstrations in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh.

DIGITAL DETECTIVE

HEADQUARTERS: UK
TECH DEVELOPED: NetAnalysis software, which can recover stored passwords, credit card details and can recover websites that have been visited by the users of a device by looking at hidden information such as cookies and other technical data stored by their web browser software.
PRESENCE: UK, contracted by several police forces: Police Scotland, the NHS, Metropolitan Police, British Transport Police, Ministry of Defense, GCHQ, Royal Air Force and Royal Military Police.

DEVERYWARE

HEADQUARTERS: France
TECH DEVELOPED: “Geolocation, crisis management platforms and emergency communications”. The company’s “ Notico-Safe” software, was developed through funding from European Union research and development projects, is able to alert citizens on their smartphones in the event of danger or a natural disaster.
PRESENCE: In France, several high schools have been equipped with Deveryware’s facial recognition software.

DESIGN IT SOLUTIONS/PANOPTECH

HEADQUARTERS: UK
TECH DEVELOPED: Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology
PRESENCE: Contracted by UK Police forces.

DACOLL GROUP

HEADQUARTERS: UK
TECH DEVELOPED: Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology
PRESENCE: contracted by UK Police forces.

CTRL4 ENVIRO

HEADQUARTERS: Spain
TECH DEVELOPED: “MDS” (Social Distance Monitor), a system capable of anonymously analyzing the images already available from CCTV cameras located in public spaces in order to control social distance, appropriate use of masks and density of occupation.
PRESENCE: Spain, contracted by Castelldefels municipality.

COGNITEC

HEADQUARTERS: Germany
TECH DEVELOPED: Facial searching software.
PRESENCE: In the UK Cognitec is contracted by the Home Office to equip the Police National Database with facial searching capability. In France Cognitec’ software is used to search police files.

CLEARTONE

HEADQUARTERS: UK
TECH DEVELOPED: Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology
PRESENCE: contracted by UK Police forces.

CIVICA

HEADQUARTERS: UK
TECH DEVELOPED: Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology
PRESENCE: contracted by UK Police forces.

Cisco

HEADQUARTERS: US
TECH DEVELOPED:  Facial Recognition Technology. Cisco was originally specialised in network hardware before gradually moving towards artificial intelligence.
PRESENCE: In France several high schools have been equipped with Cisco’s facial recognition software.

CIRCLES

HEADQUARTERS: Israel
TECH DEVELOPED:Circles has developed a system able to exploit the Signaling System 7 (SS7), in order to access mobile phone location, data and communications.
PRESENCE: Circles Technology is used in at least 25 countries. The company is contracted by the governments of: Australia, Belgium, Botswana, Chile, Denmark, Ecuador, El Salvador, Estonia, Equatorial Guinea, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Israel, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Peru, Serbia, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Vietnam, Zambia, and Zimbabwe
PARTNERS:NSO Group.

CHROMA VISION

HEADQUARTERS: U.K.
TECH DEVELOPED:Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology
PRESENCE:Contracted by UK Police forces.

CGI

HEADQUARTERS: Canada
TECH DEVELOPED: Software and hardware for facial searching system.
PRESENCE: In the UK CGI is, contracted by the Home to equip the Office for the National Police National Database.

CENTRIK

HEADQUARTERS: U.K.
TECH DEVELOPED: Drone management services
PRESENCE: contracted by several Police forces in the UK.

CELLXION

HEADQUARTERS: U.K.
TECH DEVELOPED: : IMSI-Catcher technology.
PRESENCE: In the UK CellXion is contracted by Avon & Somerset, West Midlands and the Metropolitan Police.

BAE SYSTEMS

HEADQUARTERS: U.K.
TECH DEVELOPED: Automatic Number Plate Recognition System. At the same time, BAE Systems is the UK’s  the largest arms company.
PRESENCE: Contracted by the Home Office to provide the national ANPR system.

AXIS COMMUNICATIONS

HEADQUARTERS: Sweden
TECH DEVELOPED: video cameras. Axis integrates BriefCam’s software into its system
WHERE: 45 countries, including Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Spain.
PRESENCE: In the UK the company supplied video cameras for an FRT trial at the Broadway shopping Centre in Bradford.

AERYON LABS

HEADQUARTERS: Canada
OWNED BY: Flir Systems INC. (US)
TECH DEVELOPED: thermal imaging drones.
PRESENCE: In the UK Aeryon Labs has been contracted by Lancashire Police.

BRIEFCAM

HEADQUARTERS: Israel
OWNED BY: CANON (Japan)
TECH DEVELOPED: Facial recognition Technology (FRT); CCTV systems; Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR), Briefcam is marketing a “Smart City” package, which includes ANPR and FRT.
PRESENCE: Occupied East Jerusalem by the Israeli Ministry of Housing and Construction (IMOCH); “Jerusalem Safe City”. BriefCam products are marketed by IndigoVision, Axis Communications and Reliance High Tech to UK police forces, local councils, educational establishments and the National Health Service. Presence in 30 French cities including Roubaix, Vannes, Nice and Nîmes.
PARTNERS: IndigoVision, Axis Communications and Reliance High Tech which sell its products in the UK.

CDW Ltd

HEADQUARTERS: U.K.
TECH DEVELOPED: Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology
CONTRACTED BY: UK Police forces

BISMART

HEADQUARTERS: Spain
TECH DEVELOPED: : “Crime Prediction” solution for smart cities for prevention and detection of illegal drug use. It uses predictive analytical models and sensors to monitor public spaces.
PRESENCE: Spain

Bee The Data

HEADQUARTERS: Spain
TECH DEVELOPED: “Beehavior” system that analyses human behaviour at physical characteristics from camera feeds for business purpose; “Beeye”: a mass facial recognition technology.
PRESENCE: Spain

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.

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;