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IZZA Marrakech, a boutique hotel where architecture, contemporary art, and cultural collaboration redefine sustainable hospitality in the heart of the Medina
ISSUE NO. 31
The use of Artificial Intelligence tools is debated in the media. There is one field of application that is rarely – and never enough – called into question: the use of AI as a tool of control in migration flows. As recently reported by organizations like EuroMed Rights and Statewatch, among others, its impact is harsher than one might think.
Recent reports found that the use of AI for border control also contributes to the instability of the Middle East and North African region (MENA) as well as increasing discriminatory border procedures.
Technology, they claim, is «threatening the right to asylum, the right to leave one’s country, the principle of non-refoulement as well as the rights to privacy and liberty». Authorities often argue AI is just a tool, used for safety. Reality is different – and involves violations of human rights.
It is all part of the European strategy of border externalization, adopted since the early 2000s to deal with migration flows – especially those coming from Africa and the Middle East. In a nutshell, the EU, incapable or unwilling to deal with migration flows on its own borders, is outsourcing the management of migrants to other countries, and in particular to transit states like Libya or Turkey.
Border externalization is a term widely used in activism and academia to describe the extension of border and migration controls beyond the so-called ‘migrant receiving nations’ in the Global North and into neighboring countries or sending states in the Global South. It refers to a wide range of practices from controls of borders, rescue operations, to measures addressing the drivers of migration.
The same strategy is behind the memorandum signed by Italy and Tunisia this summer. Human rights are completely left behind in order to stop or contain migration flows. Turkey is now rejecting migrants and sending them to Libya and Syria.
They then also become a testing ground for new practice, like the use of surveillance technology. It is developing fat. Starting in 2004, under the Advance Passenger Information (API) Directive, air carriers must transmit the information held in passengers’ passports to the border authorities of EU member states for “pre-checks” against immigration databases.
In 2008, the biometric visa database came in to use: «the European Border Surveillance System (EUROSUR)» explains EuroMed in the Europe’s Techno-Borders report, «takes a quasi-military approach to migration control and interconnects national and EU surveillance assets including drones, cameras, sensors and other types of data gathering technologies, with National Coordination Centres (NCCs) connected to a central hub operated by Frontex». Since 2014, lie-detectors have also been used during border control interviews.
A study carried out for the European Commission in 2022 found that more than seven point seven billion was spent on «the management of European borders» between 2015 and 2020, and «the biggest parts of this budget come from European funding». The trend is set to continue and worsen.
EU military and security investment have been increased from a total of nineteen point seven billion euros in the 2014-20 period to forty-three point nine billion in the current 2021-27 period. As the EuroMed report points out, «within that, funds specifically for the purpose of borders and policing have almost all increased substantially». Nothing is better than following the money to understand where policy is going.
The situation does not change when migrants finally manage to arrive in European countries. The use of surveillance technology to control migrants and their movement once they reach the West is no news. It has been used for around twenty years. These often generate new trauma in people who are escaping surveillance in their own countries.
It is one of the hottest topics in the context of the Artificial Intelligence Act, a new set of regulations implemented by the European parliament to restrict the use of surveillance technology on EU citizens. The most unfair aspect is the European Union is using a double standard: the same restrictions do not apply to the migrant population. No privacy is granted in the context of migration and border control, both in transit countries and in the EU. Frontex – embodiment of the externalization strategy – is probably the most remarkable example.
Frontex uses surveillance technology to patrol borders. For instance, at the Turkish-Greek border, there is a widespread use of camera traps using facial recognition. They are also using drones in the Mediterranean to monitor and reject incoming migrant vessels – which has absolutely nothing to do with search and rescue activities.
Migration offices also use the same technology; a database has also been developed that contains all the biometric data of every migrant applying for refugee status in EU countries. All these technologies are now banned in the EU, but still used when it comes to migrants. In the meantime, the EU is paying for all the tools.
The United Kingdom is another example. Asylum seekers in these countries are forced to wear electronic bracelets 24/7 that work with a GPS system connected to the Home Office (the ministry of internal affairs). These monitor every single movement – an open and visible violation of their Human Rights.
Electronic bracelets are normally used for criminal offenders, and, since 2021 for administrative offenders as an alternative to house arrests. The difference is migrants and asylum seekers technically committed no crime except entering the country.
Surveillance technology also enables or facilitates the weaponizing of migrants. Increasing tools of control means. Especially regimes and authoritarian or far-right governments along the busiest migration routes are starting to use migrants as a bargain chip in what is defined as a hybrid war. They often push migrants across the borders of neighboring countries, as a way of putting pressure on them.
It is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the EU externalization strategy is outsourcing responsibility to non-European, neighboring countries, providing them with the means to keep people under control, while violating their rights. On the other hand, these countries are becoming increasingly aware of their value for the EU management of migration flows, and in some cases, are starting to use this power to create pressure on the Union.
The idea that migration can be stopped or controlled by outsourcing management and using ever more surveillance techniques and the most recent technology is a mere illusion. Migration is a natural phenomenon, driven, in contemporary society, by hunger, wars, the need to escape regimes and increasingly the lack of basic natural resources and climate change. Flows of people looking for a different future will not stop. What the EU should do, rather than exercising surveillance, is finding ways to protect the human rights of migrant people.
It encompasses any digital device, software or system that gathers data on an individuals’ activities or communications.
ISSUE NO. 31
Lampoon is a cultural magazine.
Culture today means sustainability – in its honest meaning.
Culture has always been about human respect, tolerance. It’s not only about accepting human diversity but it’s about searching for the beauty of every human peculiarity.
Inclusion is the first value that defines art. Culture today means one thing only: to be part of a community, to think as a community.
Reading Lampoon, you see that these themes are smoothly aligned. A good part of the articles’ content discusses practices to restore our environment and stories about understanding the others.
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