AI companies will fail. We can salvage something from the wreckage | AI (artificial intelligence) | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jan/18/tech-ai-bubble-burst-reverse-centaur
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#centaurs #reversecentaurs #artificialintelligence #hype #bubble #monopoly #bigtech #corydoctorow
Greece a testing ground for smart surveillance technologies
Europe is rapidly building an AI-ready smart-border regime — bankrolled by the EU, pushed by Germany and tested in Greece. Defense and security firms are among the biggest winners. Much of it is unfolding under the radar, with safeguards for people on the move lagging behind.
Border guards patrolling Greece’s frontier with North Macedonia to prevent irregular crossings have long relied on an unusual early-warning system: the storks nesting on a bridge over the Axios River. When the birds suddenly scatter, officers know someone is likely moving in the bushes below – usually migrants trying to slip out of Greece and head toward Northern Europe. Soon, their role will be obsolete.
Smart border technology, cameras and drones, will take their place – tireless, unblinking, and financed by Brussels. Greece plans to extend the high-tech surveillance model it built along the Evros land border with Turkey – designed to stop asylum seekers entering the European Union – to its northern frontier. The aim this time is to seal the exit routes used for secondary movement toward Western Europe.
What is being planned here is part of a broader shift driven by Berlin, Brussels and Athens: Germany wants fewer arrivals, the EU is funding new technologies, and Greece has become the test bed for Europe’s AI-enabled border regime.
This cross-border investigation by Solomon, Die Tageszeitung (Germany), SWI Swissinfo (Switzerland) and Inkstick Media (US) took us to eight countries – including on-the-ground reporting in seven – and involved interviews with more than two dozen officials, insiders and frontline officers. We also reviewed hundreds of pages of public and internal documents, freedom-of-information request responses, procurement records and technical documentation. Taken together, the findings show how Europe is rapidly building a smart border system, who profits from it, and what risks it creates. Among the key findings:
- How Brussels’ efforts to seal the Balkan route, combined with Berlin’s demand to curb onward movement to Germany, are driving the expansion of Greece’s new border architecture;
– Previously unpublished details about Greece’s plan to replicate the “Evros model” – the high-tech fence-and-sensor system along the Turkish land border – at its northern borders with North Macedonia and Albania;
- How E-Surveillance, the EU-funded program backing Greece’s new automated border monitoring, reflects a wider European trend: powerful systems advancing with vague data rules and thin public oversight;
- How defense giants, security firms, university labs and research institutions, backed by an influential Brussels lobby, profit from a new ecosystem of EU-funded border projects.
Drones and AI at the border
Last September, senior EU border officials attended an internal meeting to be briefed on innovation at the headquarters of Frontex, the EU border agency, in Warsaw. According to participants, a Frontex-tested drone surveillance network was presented. It featured vertical-take-off (V-BAT) drones hovering along the Bulgarian-Turkish border, transmitting real-time video to a command hub where the system alerted the police about migrant-crossing attempts and “criminal activities.”
One of the contractors is Shield AI. The California-based company is run by a former Navy SEAL, Brandon Tseng. Tseng claimed that the 60-day pilot in Bulgaria – a country which, like Greece, is accused of systematically violating asylum seeker rights – significantly reduced irregular border crossings and crime, citing Bulgarian officials. Shield AI declined to answer questions about the system, its deployment, costs, or data use. Frontex confirmed in a written response that the pilot demonstrated a prevention effect “contributing to a visible reduction or temporary stop of criminal activities,” adding that the deployment had “comprehensive fundamental-rights safeguards” and that the preventive effect was “an indirect outcome.”
Such pilots illustrate the agency’s strategy for deploying “next-generation European border surveillance capabilities” across the EU’s external frontiers – and how pilots can be hard to distinguish from operational deployments.
Frontex has also created an internal AI Hub and an AI Roundtable to identify which of the agency’s AI systems could be classified as “high-risk” under the EU AI Act. According to the regulation, systems used in migration, asylum and border control management “affect persons who are often in particularly vulnerable positions” and should, “in no circumstances,” be used either to circumvent asylum seeker rights such as through surveillance-assisted pushbacks, in which people located with the help of drones and sensors are forced back across the border before they can apply for international protection.
Frontex stated that it “does not operate or deploy high-risk AI systems.” Greece’s Hellenic Coast Guard also said it “does not operate artificial-intelligence systems” and that all procurements include data-protection clauses — even as it acknowledged using EU-provided “electronic platforms which have an AI mechanism.” The Coast Guard declined to specify which platforms it uses, citing the confidential nature of this information and the need to protect operations.
The choice of words is not accidental, as authorities prefer to talk about “algorithms,” “automation” or “innovation,” says Dr. Niovi Vavoula, an Associate Professor and Chair in Cyber Policy at the University of Luxembourg. “They hide behind broader words to avoid scrutiny and to keep systems upgradeable without relabelling them as AI.”
The European Commission has said that, contrary to deployed systems, research pilots remain outside the full legal framework — a distinction that Vavoula calls increasingly untenable. Pilots at live borders now closely resemble operations, yet are still shielded from full transparency, data protection impact assessments and public scrutiny. In her view, once such systems are tested on real people in uncontrolled, active operations (as in the Bulgaria pilot), “we are past the purely testing research phase” and any research exceptions “shouldn’t be applicable”.
The Evros Model Goes North
Such concerns are often dismissed at a time when migration has been reframed as a security threat across Europe. “Everything to do with borders is being more and more exempt from democratic oversight, accountability, transparency,” said Bram Vranken, a researcher at Corporate Europe Observatory, a Brussels-based watchdog tracking tech and defense lobbying.
This new narrative is evident in the replication of the “Evros model” — the high-tech fence-and-sensor system Greece installed along its border with Turkey to spot and stop irregular migration, equipped with long-range cameras, thermal sensors, drones, and central command hubs.
Under the EU’s €35.4 million“E-Surveillance” program, Greece is bringing the Evros system to its northern borders.
Meeting minutes and technical and other documents reviewed for this investigation detail plans for Mobile Incident-Management Centers: 4×4 vehicles with thermal cameras, drones, and encrypted communications systems, operating alongside new fixed surveillance sites and feeding real-time alerts to regional and national command centers.
Internal documents describe these units as “essential” for monitoring blind spots where “no other advanced electronic or automated surveillance systems” exist.
Tender documents reviewed by our team include broad secrecy clauses and stiff penalties for disclosure – standard, officials say, for national security contracts. But the same documents are thin on key safeguards: for example, daytime footage has a 15-day deletion limit, but no such explicit rule exists for thermal images. Encryption and auditing requirements are exhaustive, while privacy and data protections for people caught in the system are not.
Dr. Vavoula calls this a “second black box”: technical opacity layered with legal omissions.
In Evros, the system has proven effective in deterring asylum seekers from reaching EU soil, according to Greek and EU officials, as shown in a previous Solomon investigation. Which is why Evros is now more of a blueprint than a test site: the same technology used to keep migrants out of Europe will be used to keep them inside Greece, limiting movement toward the Balkans and beyond.
For years, Greece resisted EU pressure to bolster checks at its northern exits. After a scathing 2021 Schengen evaluation, the EU demanded upgrades. The new system is expected to be fully operational in 2027. Police sources briefed on the plans say the system will automate what once depended on human observation: a crossing detected on thermal camera, auto-tracked by drone, and relayed to a rapid-response unit.
Ample funding and political pressure
Greece’s northern frontier has long served as a quiet exit route for people trying to reach Western Europe via the Balkan corridor, and Greek policy was to tolerate the movement to a degree, seeing it as a way to ease pressure inside the country.
Greece’s new rush to secure those exits is partly driven by German pressure, according to Greek migration and security officials involved in the deliberations. Berlin has taken one of Europe’s hardest lines on migration, tightening asylum rules and insisting on tougher border controls across the bloc.
When Germany’s new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, met Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in May 2025, the message was blunt: “Secondary migration from Greece to Germany must decrease. Returns must increase.” Germany received over 25,000 asylum applications in 2024 from people already recognized as refugees in Greece.
Asked by this investigation whether the German Interior Ministry could confirm that it was putting pressure on Greece, the official line was: “The Federal Government supports measures that contribute to an effective protection of the EU’s external borders and the fight against inhumane smuggling.”
A senior Greek official summed up the dynamics: “Brussels wants results. Berlin wants fewer arrivals. Athens delivers both – it is that simple.” The political pressure is palpable, driven by the fact that migration remains one of the top voter concerns across much of Europe.
Smart border winners
The EU money at stake is vast. For 2021-2027, Greece has over €1.5 billion in EU Home Affairs funding at its disposal. Greece’s border allocation (BMVI) is the largest in the EU. Its Home Affairs package is second only to Germany’s.
Our investigation found that much of it is earmarked for surveillance and automation:
– a unified maritime surveillance system using radars, cameras and patrol vessels;
- new surveillance equipment;
- encrypted police communications in border zones;
- offshore patrol vessels with Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) drones;
- €100 million to extend and equip the Evros fence.
Greek officials say one of the goals is full coverage of the land border with Turkey through a mix of personnel and high-tech detection systems. Some 2,000 border guards are currently deployed there, assisted “by technology, equipment, the fence, which is an important means of deterrence,” said Michalis Chrisochoidis, Greece’s civil protection minister.
Spending on high-tech deterrence dwarfs investment in search and rescue or services for asylum seekers. A Solomon investigation found that just €600,000 (or 0,07 percent) of total EU border management funding to Greece was earmarked for search and rescue. In October 2025 the Greek Migration Ministry decided to cut spending and benefits for asylum related services by a hefty 30 percent.
Across the EU, member states plan to spend less than 0.04 percent of their border funds on assistance and protection for people on the move, funnelling nearly all resources into infrastructure and surveillance.
A corporate windfall
Defense and security companies are major beneficiaries of Europe’s border-security boom.
Shield AI, the US company behind the Bulgaria pilot, sells its V-BAT drones not only to Greece but also to the Netherlands and the US Coast Guard and Navy.
Israeli defense giants, long embedded in Europe’s border-security market, are also deeply involved. Israel’s Aerospace Industries (IAI) and Elbit Systems – the country’s biggest defense company – provide Heron and Hermes drones to Frontex and Greece, including for the monitoring of vessels departing Libya for Crete.
In 2023, IAI acquired Greece’s Intracom Defense (IDE), embedding Israeli industry inside Greece’s defense ecosystem. Other Israeli companies — including Aeronautics and Rafael — supply UAVs, sensors and analytics to Greek and EU missions. Earlier investigations have documented the reach of Israeli-made surveillance tools in Europe’s border systems and in Greek refugee camps, with companies tied to Israel’s defense sector providing key software and hardware.
Greek firms profit too. Construction giant GEK Terna helped extend the Evros fence; Space Hellas led a multi-million expansion of the Automated Border Surveillance System in Evros; And companies like ESA Security and Byte delivered the “smart” camp monitoring systems (Centaur and Hyperion).
Behind the contracts is a powerful lobbying network in Brussels. A web of interlocking associations – including ASD (representing Europe’s aerospace, security and defense industries); EOS (the security-industry association); and ECSO (set up in 2016 as the European Commission’s cybersecurity public-private partner) – pushes for a tech-first agenda and more public money for security R&D. Industry figures often rotate across associations advising the Commission.
The Great Tech Bazaar
At a major defense expo in Athens last spring, the future of Europe’s border control was on full display: radar-fusion platforms, AI powered camera networks, “heat maps” predicting migration flows. Startups pitched tools that blur the line between civil and military tech – a trend encouraged by EU policy. Even the European Commission had a booth. Its Joint Research Centre is heavily involved in, among other things, migration-route forecasts.
The line between civilian and military tech is increasingly blurred. Programs like the EU Defense Innovation Scheme bring start-ups, companies, research centers and universities into defense and policing supply chains, creating a pipeline where tools built for commercial use are quickly turned into surveillance products.
One example is ROBORDER, an EU-funded project to build a “fully-functional autonomous border surveillance system.” Its consortium spanned major research institutions — including the center for Research and Technology Hellas, the University of Athens and a German R&D behemoth (the Fraunhofer Society) — as well as NATO and Greece’s Defense Ministry. The project’s results then fed into REACTION, the EU-funded AI border surveillance program coordinated by Greece’s Migration Ministry. Due by the end of 2025, it promises an “automated picture” of Greek land and sea borders for early warning and response.
Beyond winning contracts, the real prize, according to experts, is data. Dr. Vavoula said migration has become “a primary testing ground” for harvesting mass amounts of personal data that can be used to train AI models predicting movements or “riskiness” — with huge potential for bias.
EU “set on” AI
The EU sets the technological direction, funds it, and expects member states to align. Greece has become one of the most enthusiastic adopters.
The EU’s Integrated Border Management Strategy is backed by the €6.7 billion BMVI fund (2021–27), while Horizon Europe adds hundreds of millions for security and border-tech research.
Greece is building its own AI-powered surveillance hub, THORAX – a nearly €49 million system fusing radar, drone, and sensor data from the army, police and coast guard, using machine learning to flag and deal with threats.
In 2025, the Commission proposed tripling overall home-affairs funding to €81 billion for 2028–2034, including €15.4 billion for border management, €12 billion for migration and €11.9 billion for Frontex. One of the explicit goals is to “fully digitalise border control management” and modernise law-enforcement capacities.
Lobbying has played a key role: Companies like Airbus, Thales, Leonardo and Indra lobbied for a unified security market and then won many of the resulting contracts.
“The EU is set on the idea of imposing AI in border management,” said Theofanis Papadopoulos, head of Greece’s Managing Authority for Migration and Home Affairs Funds. “They make these calls, fully oriented toward AI and e-surveillance. They provide funding, launch calls with this very specific orientation and this gives reason for the Member States to move towards this direction.”
Minutes from a meeting of the committee that oversees how Greece uses EU migration and home-affairs funds confirm it: a Hellenic Police official described an integrated surveillance system as “a requirement of the European Commission” for closing the northwest route and curbing secondary migration.
Similar tools are already being tested outside the EU — including in Britain, where a Home Office pilot using facial-age estimation algorithms on asylum seekers, uncovered through freedom-of-information requests, has raised concerns about bias and reliability and the checkered track record of some of the companies involved.
The Human Cost
Hans Leijtens, the executive director of Frontex, has said cutting-edge technologies can “sav[e] lives that otherwise may have been lost.” The Commission has argued they will enhance efficiency while respecting fundamental rights.
But on the ground, the record is troubling. In June 2023, an overcrowded fishing vessel carrying hundreds of migrants from Libya sank inside Greece’s search and rescue zone. The deadliest shipwreck in the Mediterranean in recent history unfolded in plain view of Europe’s surveillance systems — not for lack of sensors or aircraft, but amid what critics describe as a failure of political will. In a written response, the Hellenic Coast Guard insisted its primary mission is the protection of life at sea, noting that its crews have rescued more than 268,000 people in over 6,500 incidents.
Rights groups warn that “technology contributes to the growing trend of human rights violations at borders,” and that drones and cameras frequently support pushbacks and abuse. “These tools are not trained to show compassion,” Dr. Vavoula cautions. At the border, she added, the rationale is deterrence, not protection.
Safeguards remain minimal. Tender files for Greece’s E-surveillance program this investigation reviewed are detailed on technical requirements but vague on oversight, data retention, or remedies.
Insiders described the paperwork involved in data protection impact assessments as box-ticking exercises.
In 2024, Greece’s Data Protection Authority issued a record fine on the country’s Migration Ministry for deploying two EU-funded camp surveillance systems without proper safeguards – violations first exposed by Solomon journalists.
Other EU projects show similar weaknesses. Nestor, a “next generation” pre-frontier surveillance system detecting movements well before people reach the EU’s borders, relied heavily on self-assessment, with an ethics board made up mostly of consortium members, according to documents reviewed for this investigation. The European Commission said that the project was evaluated by independent experts through the European Research Executive Agency.
Stergios Aidinlis, associate professor of AI law at the University of Durham, argues that ethics and legal oversight in such programs can be “too formalistic” and warns about the potential conflicts of interest when governments or companies are the ones doing the oversight, as in the case of NESTOR, where the Athens-based, state-affiliated Center for Security Studies heads the ethics advisory board. The center declined to comment.
From Warsaw’s conference rooms to the Evros riverbanks the same trend appears: systems are expanding faster than the safeguards meant to govern them. Across Europe, billions in public money are flowing into an increasingly automated border infrastructure. Oversight and projections, officials and experts acknowledge, have not kept pace.
▻https://wearesolomon.com/mag/format/investigation/greece-a-testing-ground-for-smart-surveillance-technologies
#Grèce #surveillance #technologie #test #smart_borders #frontières_intelligentes #AI #IA #intelligence_artificielle #complexe_militaro-industriel #Evros #frontières #migrations #réfugiés #business #drones #Axios #Macédoine_du_Nord #externalisation #modèle_Evros #e-surveillance #Frontex #V-BAT #Shield_AI #Brandon_Tseng #murs #barrières_frontalières #route_des_Balkans #mouvements_secondaires #Israel’s_Aerospace_Industries (#IAI) #Elbit_Systems #Heron #Hermes #Intracom_Defense (#IDE) #Aeronautics #Rafael #GEK_Terna #Space_Hellas #ESA_Security #Leonardo #Byte #Centaur #Hyperion #ASD #EOS #ECSO #vidéosurveillance #Defense_Innovation_Scheme #ROBORDER #Fraunhofer_Society #REACTION #Integrated_Border_Management_Strategy #Horizon_Europe #BMVI #THORAX #radar #Airbus #Thales #Indra #lobby
Sans titre
▻https://bsky.app/profile/gorekhaa.bsky.social/post/3lzcdvzyc422g
►https://www.vice.com/en/article/3d-printed-rocket-launcher
#DiY #CentaureTaMère
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Commentary : Cory #doctorow : Reverse Centaurs – Locus Online
▻https://locusmag.com/feature/commentary-cory-doctorow-reverse-centaurs
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#artificialintelligence #centaur #reversecentaur #cadency #weil #work #employment #profit #wellbeing #regulation #politics #technology #sociology
Au #Salon_AGIR, l’irrésistible ascension de la #haute_technologie dans le domaine de la #sécurité_intérieure
Organisées une fois par an par la #gendarmerie, ces rencontres mettent en relation « porteurs de projet » publics et industriels de la #sécurité appâtés par un #marché estimé à 30 milliards d’euros.
Jeudi 28 novembre, dans la salle de réception du beffroi de Montrouge (Val-de-Marne), des gendarmes, des pompiers ou des policiers en civil installés à des tables hautes attendent la visite d’industriels. Les pancartes posées près d’eux détaillent sur leurs besoins – lutte antidrones, systèmes de communication, acquisition de renseignement, cybersécurité… Pour sa quatrième édition, le salon AGIR (Accompagnement par la gendarmerie de l’#innovation, de l’#industrie et de la #recherche), témoigne de l’irrésistible – et parfois inquiétante – ascension de la haute technologie dans le domaine de la sécurité intérieure. Depuis la première édition du salon, en 2021, le nombre de sociétés du secteur présentes est passé de 110 à près de 500.
Comme pour un speed-dating, chaque professionnel dispose d’un quart d’heure pour convaincre un « porteur de besoin » qu’il possède une solution adaptée ou est capable de la développer. Les rendez-vous, ponctués d’un sabir mêlant anglais des affaires et jargon de la sécurité, concernent un large spectre de besoins, du compostage de déchets organiques pour les réfectoires au logiciel de très haute technologie destiné au traitement de masse des données numériques. « En revanche, on ne tope pas à la fin de la journée », précise le colonel Mikaël Petit, conseiller innovation/transformation au pôle stratégie de la Direction générale de la Gendarmerie nationale et cheville ouvrière du salon. Après une première prise de contact, un processus de définition des besoins précis et de collaboration s’étend sur plusieurs mois avant que le produit fini soit validé et mis en service.
Les entreprises présentes, parfois des start-up, constituent le cœur de cible des partenariats espérés par les services de sécurité et de secours en raison de l’importance prise par les technologies « duales », dont l’usage relève à la fois de la #sécurité ou de la #défense, et du #civil. Les #drones en fournissent un excellent exemple. S’il y a peu de chances que des criminels puissent déployer un engin volant de type militaire, le recours à des drones civils à des fins offensives ou de renseignement a été déjà été observé, pour livrer de la drogue derrière les murs d’une enceinte carcérale ou scruter les mouvements des concurrents d’un narcotrafiquant. Or, dans la quasi-totalité des cas, des drones acquis dans le commerce sont utilisés pour parvenir à de telles fins. « D’où l’importance de connaître cet écosystème et trouver rapidement une solution à un besoin opérationnel », précise encore le colonel Petit.
Deux millions d’euros de contrats en 2021
En 2021, lorsque la gendarmerie acquiert ses quatre-vingt-dix exemplaires du #Centaure, un blindé polyvalent entré en service un an plus tard, elle ne dispose toujours pas de simulateur de pilotage. #Exail, une société spécialisée basée à Lannion (Côtes-d’Armor), se présente à la première édition du salon. « Nous avions trente-cinq ans d’expérience dans l’élaboration de simulateurs pour la conduite d’urgence ou les services d’intervention, nous avons adapté nos solutions et remporté le marché », détaille #Louis_Elcabache, le responsable des ventes de l’entreprise. Idem pour #Factem, une entreprise installée à Bayeux (Calavdos) qui conçoit notamment les « casques de pont d’envol » utilisés sur les porte-avions : elle développera le système audio de communication pour le conducteur du blindé et les autres personnels embarqués. « Avant ça, nous étions présents sur le marché de la défense mais pas sur celui de la sécurité intérieure », détaille Quentin Plattier, ingénieur produits de la société.
Pour les représentants de ces #TPE et #PME, mettre un pied dans la porte des commandes publiques du ministère de l’intérieur constitue un enjeu fondamental pour s’affirmer dans un #marché_global (#sécurité_privée et #sécurité_de_l’Etat) estimé à trente milliards d’euros au niveau national, sans compter le statut de fournisseur officiel d’une institution régalienne, qui peut assurer d’intéressants débouchés dans le privé ou à l’international. « Lorsque des délégations étrangères visitent les centres où sont déployés nos simulateurs, on ne va pas se mentir, ça nous fait de la pub », dit encore Louis Elcabache. « Mais pour arriver à ce résultat, nos clients, gendarmes en tête, nous mettent quand même pas mal la pression et n’hésitent pas à faire jouer la concurrence, avec une approche très offensive de la négociation », explique un autre industriel sous couvert d’anonymat.
La gendarmerie revendique deux millions d’euros de contrats passés avec des industriels pour des besoins exprimés depuis le premier salon, en 2021, sans livrer le détail de la ventilation de ces marchés. Avec un art consommé de la communication et une certaine suite financière dans les idées, l’institution n’oublie jamais de tirer profit de ces partenariats. « Lorsque nous mettons à la disposition du projet l’un de nos mille ingénieurs ou trois cents docteurs pour des retours d’expérience sur des produits en cours de développement, nous négocions des parts de propriété intellectuelle », explique encore le colonel Petit. Une habile initiative qui lui permet de percevoir une commission sur d’éventuelles futures ventes du produit.
▻https://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2024/11/29/au-salon-agir-l-irresistible-ascension-de-la-haute-technologie-dans-le-domai
#AGIR #technologie #complexe_militaro-industriel #business #France
ping @karine4
The Hellenic Data Protection Authority fines the Ministry of Migration and Asylum for the “Centaurus” and “Hyperion” systems with the largest penalty ever imposed to a Greek public body
Two years ago, in February 2022, Homo Digitalis had filed (▻https://homodigitalis.gr/en/posts/10874) a complaint against the Ministry of Immigration and Asylum for the “#Centaurus” and “#Hyperion” systems deployed in the reception and accommodation facilities for asylum seekers, in cooperation with the civil society organizations Hellenic League for Human Rights and HIAS Greece, as well as the academic Niovi Vavoula.
Today, the Hellenic Data Protection Authority identified significant GDPR violations in this case by the Ministry of Immigration and Asylum and decided to impose a fine of €175.000 euro – the highest ever imposed against a public body in the country.
The detailed analysis of the GDPR highlights the significant shortcomings that the Ministry of Immigration and Asylum had fallen into in the context of preparing a comprehensive and coherent Data Protection Impact Assessment, and demonstrates the significant violations of the GDPR that have been identified and relate to a large number of subjects who have a real hardship in being able to exercise their rights.
Despite the fact that the DPA remains understaffed, with a reduced budget, facing even the the risk of eviction from its premises, it manages to fulfil its mission and maintain citizens’ trust in the Independent Authorities. It remains to be seen how long the DPA will last if the state does not stand by its side.
Of course, nothing ends here. A high fine does not in itself mean anything. The Ministry of Immigration and Asylum must comply within 3 months with its obligations. However, the decision gives us the strength to continue our actions in the field of border protection in order to protect the rights of vulnerable social groups who are targeted by highly intrusive technologies.
You can read our press release here: ▻https://homodigitalis.gr/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PressRelease_%CE%97omoDigitalis_Fine-175.000-euro_Hellenic_Data_Protec
You can read Decision 13/2024 on the Authority’s website here: ▻https://www.dpa.gr/el/enimerwtiko/prakseisArxis/aytepaggelti-ereyna-gia-tin-anaptyxi-kai-egkatastasi-ton-programmaton
▻https://homodigitalis.gr/en/posts/132195
#Grèce #surveillance #migrations #réfugiés #justice #amende #RGDP #données #protection_des_données #camps_de_réfugiés #technologie
Griechenland soll Strafe für Überwachung in Grenzcamps zahlen
Wie weit darf die EU bei der Überwachung von Asylsuchenden an ihren Grenzen gehen? Griechenland testet das in neuen Lagern auf den Ägäischen Inseln. Nun hat die griechische Datenschutzbehörde dafür eine Strafe verhängt. Bürgerrechtler:innen hoffen auf eine Entscheidung mit Signalwirkung.
Doppelter „Nato-Sicherheitszaun“ mit Stacheldraht. Kameras, die selbst den Basketballplatz und die Gemeinschaftsräume rund um die Uhr im Blick haben. Drohnen sorgen für Überwachung aus der Luft. Das Lager auf Samos, das die griechische Regierung 2021 mit viel Getöse eröffnet hat, gleicht eher einem Gefängnis als einer Erstaufnahme für Asylsuchende, die gerade in Europa gelandet sind.
Das Überwachungssystem, das in diesem und vier weiteren Lagern auf den griechischen Inseln für „Sicherheit“ sorgen soll, heißt Centaurus. Die Bilder aus den Sicherheitskameras und Drohnen laufen in einem Kontrollzentrum im Ministerium in Athen zusammen. Bei besonderen Situationen sollen auch Polizeibehörden oder die Feuerwehr direkten Zugang zu den Aufnahmen bekommen. Mit dem System Hyperion wird der Zugang zum Lager kontrolliert: biometrischen Eingangstore, die sich nur mit Fingerabdrücken öffnen lassen.
Für den Einsatz dieser Technologien ohne vorherige Grundrechtsprüfung hat das Ministerium nun eine Strafe kassiert. Die griechische Datenschutzaufsicht sieht einen Verstoß gegen Datenschutzgesetze in der EU (DSGVO). In einem lang erwarteten Beschluss belegte sie vergangene Woche das Ministerium für Migration und Asyl mit einem Bußgeld von 175.000 Euro.
Erst eingesetzt, dann Folgen abgeschätzt
Zwei konkrete Punkte führten laut Datenschutzbehörde zu der Entscheidung: Das Ministerium hat es versäumt, rechtzeitig eine Datenschutz-Folgenabschätzung zu erstellen. Gemeint ist damit eine Bewertung, welche Auswirkungen der Einsatz der Überwachung auf die Grundrechte der betroffenen Personen hat. Es geht um die Asylsuchenden, die in den Lagern festgehalten werden, aber auch Angestellte, Mitarbeitende von NGOs oder Gäste, die das Lager betreten.
Eine solche Abschätzung hätte bereits vor der Anschaffung und dem Einsatz der Technologien vollständig vorliegen müssen, schreibt die Aufsichtsbehörde in ihrer Entscheidung. Stattdessen ist sie bis heute unvollständig: Ein Verstoß gegen die Artikel 25 und 35 der Datenschutzgrundverordnung, für die die Behörde eine Geldbuße in Höhe von 100.000 Euro verhängt.
Zusätzlich wirft die Behörde dem Ministerium Intransparenz vor. Dokumente hätten beispielsweise verwirrende und widersprüchliche Angaben enthalten. Verträge mit den Unternehmen, die die Überwachungssysteme betreiben, hätte das Ministerium mit Verweis auf Geheimhaltung gar nicht herausgegeben, und damit auch keine Details zu den Bedingungen, zu denen die Daten verarbeitet werden. Wie diese Systeme mit anderen Datenbanken etwa zur Strafverfolgung verknüpft sind, ob also Aufnahmen und biometrische Daten auch bei der Polizei landen könnten, das wollte das Ministerium ebenfalls nicht mitteilen. Dafür verhängte die Aufsichtsbehörde weitere 75.000 Euro Strafe.
Ministerium: Systeme noch in der Testphase
Das Ministerium rechtfertigt sich: Centaurus und Hyperion seien noch nicht vollständig in Betrieb, man befinde sich noch in der Testphase. Die Aufsichtsbehörde habe nicht bedacht, dass „die Verarbeitung personenbezogener Daten nicht bewertet werden konnte, bevor die Systeme in Betrieb genommen wurden“. Hinzu kämen Pflichten zur Geheimhaltung, die sich aus den Verträgen mit den Unternehmen hinter den beiden Systemen ergeben.
Die Behörde hat das nicht durchgehen lassen: Rein rechtlich mache es keinen Unterschied, ob ein System noch getestet wird oder im Regelbetrieb sei, schriebt sie in ihrer Entscheidung. Die Abschätzung hätte weit vorher, nämlich bereits bei Abschluss der Verträge, vorliegen müssen. Noch dazu würden diese Verstöße eine große Zahl an Menschen betreffen, die sich in einer besonders schutzlosen Lage befänden.
Abschalten muss das Ministerium die Überwachungssysteme allerdings nicht, sie bleiben in Betrieb. Es muss lediglich binnen drei Monaten den Forderungen nachkommen und fehlende Unterlagen liefern. Das Ministerium kündigt an, die Entscheidung rechtlich überprüfen und möglicherweise anfechten zu wollen.
Geheimhaltungspflicht keine Ausrede
„Die Entscheidung ist sehr wichtig, weil sie einen sehr hohen Standard dafür setzt, wann und wie eine Datenschutz-Folgenabschätzung erfolgreich durchgeführt werden muss, sogar vor der Auftragsvergabe“, sagt Eleftherios Helioudakis. Er ist Anwalt bei der griechischen Organisation Homo Digitalis und beschäftigt sich mit den Auswirkungen von Technologien auf Menschenrechte. Eine Beschwerde von Homo Digitalis und weiteren Vereinen aus dem Jahr 2022 hatte die Untersuchung angestoßen.
Helioudakis sagt, die Entscheidung mache deutlich, dass mangelnde Kommunikation mit der Datenschutzbehörde zu hohen Geldstrafen führen kann. Außerdem sei nun klar: Das Ministerium kann Vertragsklauseln zum Datenschutz nicht aus Gründen der Geheimhaltung vor der Datenschutzbehörde verbergen, denn für deren Untersuchungen ist die Geheimhaltungspflicht aufgehoben – wie es die DSGVO vorsieht. Das Urteil der Behörde beziehe sich zudem erst mal nur auf die Mängel bei der Einführung der Systeme, so der Bürgerrechtler. Es könnten also neue Fälle bei der Datenschutzbehörde anhängig gemacht werden.
Die Sanktionen sind laut der Hilfsorganisation Hias die höchsten, die die Datenschutzbehörde je gegen den griechischen Staat verhängt hat. In der Summe fallen die Strafzahlungen allerdings gering aus. Sind die Datenschutzregeln der EU wirklich das geeignete Instrument, um die Rechte von Asylsuchenden zu schützen? Eleftherios Helioudakis sagt ja. „Die gesetzlichen Bestimmungen der Datenschutz-Grundverordnung sind Instrumente, mit denen wir die Bestimmungen zum Schutz personenbezogener Daten praktisch durchsetzen können.“ Es gebe keine richtigen und falschen Ansätze. „Wir können die uns zur Verfügung stehenden juristischen Instrumente nutzen, um unsere Strategie zu bündeln und uns gegen übergriffige Praktiken zu wehren.“
Die Lager auf den Ägäischen Inseln werden vollständig von der EU finanziert und gelten als „Modell“. Nach ihrem Vorbild plant die EU in den kommenden Jahren weitere Lager an ihren Außengrenzen zu errichten. Die Entscheidung der griechischen Datenschutzaufsicht wird von der Kommission vermutlich mit Interesse verfolgt. Sie macht deutlich, unter welchen Voraussetzungen Überwachungstechnologien in diesen Camps eingesetzt werden können.
▻https://netzpolitik.org/2024/panopticon-fuer-gefluechtete-griechenland-soll-strafe-fuer-ueberwachung
#Danton, la #guillotine, second service... :-D :-D :-D
"Affaire Gérard #Depardieu, François Berléand fait une importante remarque : “Aucune des comédiennes…” ..."
"Les gens" haïssent aujourd’hui ce qu’ils adoraient hier...
#miroir #société #hypocrisie #art #cinéma #centaure #amazone #culture #humour #politique #seenthis #vangauguin
▻https://www.gala.fr/l_actu/news_de_stars/affaire-gerard-depardieu-francois-berleand-fait-une-importante-remarque-aucune-
Greek data watchdog to rule on AI systems in refugee camps
A forthcoming decision on the compliance of surveillance and security systems in Greek refugee camps could set a precedent for how AI and biometric systems are deployed for ‘migration management’ in Europe
Greece’s data protection watchdog is set to issue a long-awaited decision on the legality of controversial high-tech surveillance and security systems deployed in the country’s refugee camps.
The Greek Data Protection Authority’s (DPA) decision, expected by the end of the year, concerns in part a new multimillion-euro Artificial Intelligence Behavioural Analytics security system, which has been installed at several recently constructed refugee camps on the Aegean islands.
The system – dubbed #Centaur and funded through the European Union (EU) – relies on algorithms and surveillance equipment – including cameras, drones, sensors and other hardware installed inside refugee camps – to automatically detect purported threats, alert authorities and keep a log of incidents. Hyperion, another system that relies on biometric fingerprint data to facilitate entry and exit from the refugee camps, is also being examined in the probe.
Centaur and #Hyperion came under investigation in March 2022, after several Greek civil society organisations and a researcher filed a complaint to the Greek DPA questioning the legality of the programs under Greek and European laws. The Greek DPA’s decision could determine how artificial intelligence (AI) and biometric systems are used within the migration management context in Greece and beyond.
Although the data watchdog’s decision remains to be seen, a review of dozens of documents obtained through public access to documents requests, on-the-ground reporting from the islands where the systems have been deployed, as well as interviews with Greek officials, camp staff and asylum seekers, suggest the Greek authorities likely sidestepped or botched crucial procedural requirements under the European Union’s (EU) privacy and human rights law during a mad rush to procure and deploy the systems.
“It is difficult to see how the DPA will not find a breach,” said Niovi Vavoula, a lecturer at Queen Mary University of London, who petitioned the Greek DPA alongside Greek civil society organisations Homo Digitalis, The Hellenic League for Human Rights, and HIAS Greece.
She said “major shortcomings” identified include the lack of appointment of a data protection officer at the Greek Migration Ministry prior to the launch of its programs.
Security systems a hallmark of new EU camps
Centaur and Hyperion are hallmarks of Greece’s newest migrant facilities, also known as Closed Controlled Access Centres (CCACs), which began opening in the eastern Aegean in 2021 with funding and supervision from the European Commission (EC). Greek authorities have lauded the surveillance apparatus at the revamped facilities as a silver-bullet solution to the problems that plagued previous makeshift migrant camps in Greece.
The Centaur system allows authorities to monitor virtually every inch of the camps’ outdoor areas – and even some indoor spaces – from local command and control centres on the islands, and from a centralised control room in Athens, which Greece’s former migration minister Notis Mitarachi unveiled with much fanfare in September 2021.
“We’re not monitoring people. We’re trying to prevent something bad from happening,” Anastasios Salis, the migration ministry’s director general of ICT and one of the self-described architects of the Centaur system, told me when I visited the ministry’s centralised control room in Athens in December 2021. “It’s not a prison, okay? It’s something different.”
Critics have described the new camps as “prison-like” and a “dystopian nightmare”.
Behind closed doors, the systems have also come under scrutiny by some EU authorities, including its Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA), which expressed concerns following a visit to one of the camps on Samos Island in May 2022.
In subsequent informal input on Greece’s refugee camp security measures, the FRA said it was “concerned about the necessity and proportionality of some of the measures and their possible impact on fundamental rights of residents” and recommended “less intrusive measures”.
Asked during the control room tour in 2021 what is being done to ensure the operation of the Centaur system respects privacy laws and the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Salis responded: “GDPR? I don’t see any personal data recorded.”
‘Spectacular #experimentation’
While other EU countries have experimented with myriad migration management and surveillance systems, Greece’s refugee camp deployments are unique.
“What we see in Greece is spectacular experimentation of a variety of systems that we might not find in this condensed way in other national contexts,” said Caterina Rodelli, a policy analyst at the digital rights non-profit Access Now.
She added: “Whereas in other European countries you might find surveillance of migrant people, asylum seekers … Greece has paved the way for having more dense testing environments” within refugee camps – particularly since the creation of its EU-funded and tech-riddled refugee camps.
The #Samos facility, arguably the EU’s flagship camp, has been advertised as a model and visited by officials from the UK, the US and Morocco. Technology deployments at Greece’s borders have already been replicated in other European countries.
When compared with other Mediterranean states, Greece has also received disproportionate funding from the EU for its border reinforcement projects.
In a report published in July, the research outfit Statewatch compared commission funds to Greece between 2014 and 2020 and those projected to be paid between 2021 and 2027, finding that “the funding directed specifically towards borders has skyrocketed from almost €303m to more than €1bn – an increase of 248%”.
Greece’s Centre for Security Studies, a research and consulting institution overseen by the Greek minister of citizen protection, for example, received €12.8m in EU funds to develop border technologies – the most of any organisation analysed in the report during an eight-year period that ended in 2022.
Surveillance and security systems at Greek refugee camps are funded through the EU’s Covid recovery fund, known formally as the European Commission’s Recovery and Resilience Facility, as well as the Internal Security Fund.
Early warnings
At the heart of the Greek DPA probe are questions about whether Greece has a legal basis for the type of data processing understood to be required in the programs, and whether it followed procedures required under GDPR.
This includes the need to conduct data protection impact assessments (DPIAs), which demonstrate compliance with the regulation as well as help identify and mitigate various risks associated with personal data processing – a procedure the GDPR stipulates must be carried out far in advance of certain systems being deployed.
The need to conduct these assessments before technology deployments take place was underscored by the Greek DPA in a letter sent to the Greek migration ministry in March 2022 at the launch of its probe, in which it wrote that “in the case of procurement of surveillance and control systems” impact studies “should be carried out not only before their operation, but also before their procurement”.
Official warnings for Greece to tread carefully with the use of surveillance in its camps came as early as June 2021 – months before the opening of the first EU-funded camp on Samos Island – when the FRA provided input on the use of surveillance equipment in Greek refugee camps, and the Centaur project specifically.
In a document reviewed by Computer Weekly, the FRA wrote that the system would need to undergo “a thorough impact assessment” to check its compatibility with fundamental rights, including data protection and privacy safeguards. It also wrote that “the Greek authorities need to provide details on the equipment they are planning to use, its intended purpose and the legal basis for the automated processing of personal data, which to our understanding include sensitive biometric data”.
A botched process?
However, according to documents obtained through public record requests, the impact assessments related to the programs were only carried out months after the systems were deployed and operational, while the first assessments were not shared with the commission until late January 2022.
Subsequent communications between EU and Greek authorities reveal, for the first time, glaring procedural omissions and clumsy efforts by Greek authorities to backpedal into compliance.
For example, Greece’s initial assessments of the Centaur system covered the use of the CCTV cameras, but not the potentially more sensitive aspects of the project such as the use of motion analysis algorithms and drones, a commission representative wrote to Greek authorities in May 2022. The representative further underscored the importance of assessing “the impact of the whole project on data protection principles and fundamental rights”.
The commission also informed the Greek authorities that some areas where cameras were understood to have been placed, such as common areas inside accommodation corridors, could be deemed as “sensitive”, and that Greece would need to assess if these deployments would interfere with data protection, privacy and other rights such as non-discrimination or child rights.
It also requested more details on the personal data categories being processed – suggesting that relevant information on the categories and modalities of processing – such as whether the categories would be inferred by a human or an algorithm-based technology – had been excluded. At the time, Greek officials had reported that only “physical characteristics” would be collected but did not expand further.
“No explanation is provided on why less intrusive measures cannot be implemented to prevent and detect criminal activities,” the commission wrote, reminding Greece that “all asylum seekers are considered vulnerable data subjects”, according to guidelines endorsed by the European Data Protection Board (EDPB).
The FRA, in informal input provided after its visit to the Samos camp in May 2022, recommended basic safeguards Greece could take to ensure camp surveillance systems are in full compliance with GDPR. This included placing visible signs to inform camp residents and staff “about the operation of CCTV cameras before entering a monitored area”.
No such signs were visible in the camp’s entry when Computer Weekly visited the Samos camp in early October this year, despite the presence of several cameras at the camp’s entry.
Computer Weekly understands that, as of early October, procedural requirements such as impact assessments had not yet been finalised, and that the migration ministry would remain in consultation with the DPA until all the programs were fully GDPR-compliant.
Responding to Computer Weekly’s questions about the findings of this story, a Greek migration ministry spokesperson said: “[The ministry] is already in open consultation with the Greek DPA for the ‘Centaur’ and ‘Hyperion’ programs since March 2022. The consultation has not yet been completed. Both of these programs have not been fully implemented as several secondary functions are still in the implementation phase while the primary functions (video surveillance through closed circuit television and drone, entry – exit through security turnstiles) of the programs are subject to continuous parameterisation and are in pilot application.
“The ministry has justified to the Greek DPA as to the necessity of implementing the measure of installing and operating video surveillance systems in the hospitality structures citing the damage that the structures constantly suffer due to vandalism, resulting in substantial damage to state assets … and risking the health of vulnerable groups such as children and their companions.”
The commission wrote to Computer Weekly that it “do[es] not comment on ongoing investigations carried out by independent data protection authorities” and did not respond to questions on the deployment of the systems.
Previous reporting by the Greek investigative outlet Solomon has similarly identified potential violations, including that the camp programs were implemented without the Greek ministry of migration and asylum hiring a data protection officer as required under the GDPR.
Lack of accountability and transparency?
The commission has said it applies all relevant checks and controls but that it is ultimately up to Greece to ensure refugee camps and their systems are in line with European standards.
Vavoula, the researcher who was involved in the Greek DPA complaint, said the EU has been “funding … these initiatives without proper oversight”.
Saskia Bricmont, a Belgian politician and a Member of the European Parliament with the Greens/European Free Alliance, described unsuccessful efforts to obtain more information on the systems deployed at Greece’s camps and borders: “Neither the commission nor the Greek authorities are willing to share information and to be transparent about it. Why? Why do they hide things – or at least give the impression they do?”
The European Ombudsman recently conducted a probe into how the commission ensures fundamental rights are being respected at Greece’s EU-funded camps. It also asked the commission to weigh in on the surveillance systems and whether it had conducted or reviewed the data protection and fundamental rights impact assessments.
The commission initially reported that Greece had “completed” assessments “before the full deployment of the surveillance systems”. In a later submission in August, however, the commission changed its wording – writing instead that the Greek authorities have “drawn up” the assessments “before the full deployment” of the tools.
The commission did not directly respond to Computer Weekly’s query asking it to clarify whether the Greek authorities have “completed” or merely “drawn up” DPIAs, and whether the commission’s understanding of the status of the DPIAs changed between the initial and final submissions to the European ombudsman.
Eleftherios Chelioudakis, co-founder of the Greek digital rights organisation Homo Digitalis, rejected the suggestion that there are different benchmarks on deployment. “There is no legal distinction between full deployment of a system or partial deployment of a system,” he said. “In both cases, there are personal data processing operations taking place.”
Chelioudakis added that the Greek DPA holds that even the mere transmission of footage (even if no data is recorded/stored) constitutes personal data processing, and that GDPR rules apply.
Check… check… is this camera on?
Greek officials, initially eager to show off the camps’ surveillance apparatus, have grown increasingly tight-lipped on the precise status of the systems.
When visiting the ministry’s centralised control room at the end of 2021, Computer Weekly’s reporter was told by officials that three camps – on Samos, Kos and Leros islands – were already fully connected to the systems and that the ministry was working “on a very tight timeframe” to connect the more than 30 remaining refugee camps in Greece. During a rare press conference in September 2022, Greece’s then-migration minister, Notis Mitarachi, said Centaur was in use at the three refugee camps on Samos, Kos and Leros.
In October 2022, Computer Weekly’s reporter was also granted access to the local control room on Samos Island, and confirmed that monitoring systems were set up and operational but not yet in use. A drone has since been deployed and is being used in the Samos camp, according to several eyewitnesses.
Officials appear to have exercised more caution with Hyperion, the fingerprint entry-exit system. Computer Weekly understands the system is fully set up and functioning at several of the camps – officials proudly demonstrated its functions during the inauguration of the Kos camp – but has not been in use.
While it’s not yet clear if the more advanced and controversial features of Centaur are in use – or if they ever will be – what is certain is that footage from the cameras installed on several islands is being fed to a centralised control room in Athens.
In early October, Computer Weekly’s reporter tried to speak with asylum seekers outside the Samos camp, after officials abruptly announced the temporary suspension of journalist access to this and other EU-funded camps. Guards behind the barbed wire fence at the camp’s gate asked the reporter to move out of the sight of cameras – installed at the gate and the camp’s periphery – afraid they would receive a scolding call from the migration ministry in Athens.
“If they see you in the cameras they will call and ask, ‘Why is there a journalist there?’ And we will have a problem,” one of the guards said. Lawyers and others who work with asylum seekers in the camp say they’ve had similar experiences.
On several occasions, Computer Weekly’s reporter has asked the Greek authorities to provide proof or early indications that the systems are improving safety for camp residents, staff and local communities. All requests have been denied or ignored.
Lawyers and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have also documented dozens of incidents that undermine Greek officials’ claims of increased safety in the tech-riddled camps.
Unmet promises of increased security
In September 2022, a peaceful protest by some 40 Samos camp residents who had received negative decisions on their asylum claims escalated into a riot. Staff evacuated the camp and police were called in and arrested several people.
Lawyers representing those accused of instigating the brawl and throwing rocks at intervening police officers said they were struck by the absence of photographic or video evidence in the case, despite their clients’ request to use the footage to prove their innocence.
“Even with all these systems, with all the surveillance, with all the cameras … there were no photographs or video, something to show that those arrested were guilty,” said Dimitris Choulis, a lawyer with the Human Rights Legal Project on Samos.
Asked about the incident, the Samos camp director at the time explained that the system has blind spots and that the cameras do not cover all areas of the camp, a claim contrary to other official statements.
Choulis’s organisation and the legal NGO I Have Rights have also collected testimonies from roughly a dozen individuals who claim they were victims of police brutality in the Samos CCAC beginning in July 2022.
According to Nikos Phokas, a resident of Leros Island, which houses one of the EU-funded facilities, while the surveillance system has proven incapable of preventing harm on several occasions, the ability it gives officials in Athens to peer into the camps at any moment has shifted dynamics for camp residents, staff and the surrounding communities. “This is the worst thing about this camp – the terror the surveillance creates for people. Everyone watches their backs because of it.”
He added the surveillance apparatus and the closed nature of the new camp on Leros has forced some camp employees to operate “under the radar” out of fear of being accused of engaging in any behaviour that may be deemed out-of-line by officials in Athens.
For example, when clothes were needed following an influx of arrivals last summer, camp employees coordinated privately and drove their personal vehicles to retrieve items from local volunteers.
“In the past, it was more flexible. But now there’s so much surveillance – Athens is looking directly at what’s happening here,” said Catharina Kahane, who headed the NGO ECHO100PLUS on Leros, but was forced to cut down on services because the closed nature of the camp, along with stricter regulations by the Greek migration ministry, made it nearly impossible for her NGO to provide services to asylum seekers.
Camp staff in one of the island facilities organised a protest to denounce being subjected to the same monitoring and security checks as asylum seekers.
Residents of the camps have mixed views on the surveillance. Heba*, a Syrian mother of three who lodged an asylum claim in Samos and was waiting out her application, in early October said the cameras and other security measures provided a sense of safety in the camp.
“What we need more is water and food,” said Mohammed*, a Palestinian asylum seeker who got to Samos in the midst of a recent surge in arrivals that brought the camp’s population to nearly 200% capacity and has led to “inhumane and degrading conditions” for residents, according to NGOs. He was perplexed by the presence of high-tech equipment in a refugee camp that has nearly daily water cuts.
▻https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Greek-data-watchdog-to-rule-on-AI-systems-in-refugee-camps
#camps_de_réfugiés #surveillance #AI #IA #intelligence_artificielle #Grèce #asile #migrations #réfugiés #camps_de_réfugiés #biométrie #algorithmes
With drones and thermal cameras, Greek officials monitor refugees
Athens says a new surveillance system will boost security, but critics raise alarm over its implications for privacy.
“Let’s go see something that looks really nice,” says Anastasios Salis, head of information and communications technology at the Greek Migration and Asylum Ministry in Athens, before entering an airtight room sealed behind two interlocking doors, accessible only with an ID card and fingerprint scan.
Beyond these doors is the ministry’s newly-installed centralised surveillance room.
The front wall is covered by a vast screen. More than a dozen rectangles and squares display footage from three refugee camps already connected to the system.
Some show a basketball court in a refugee camp on the island of Samos. Another screen shows the playground and another the inside of one of the containers where people socialise.
Overhead, lights suddenly flash red. A potential threat has been detected in one of the camps. This “threat” has been flagged by Centaur, a high-tech security system the Greek Migration Ministry is piloting and rolling out at all of the nearly 40 refugee camps in the country.
Centaur includes cameras and motion sensors. It uses algorithms to automatically predict and flag threats such as the presence of guns, unauthorised vehicles, or unusual visits into restricted areas.
The system subsequently alerts the appropriate authorities, such as the police, fire brigade, and private security working in the camps.
From the control room, operators deploy camera-equipped drones and instruct officers stationed at the camp to rush to the location of the reported threat.
Officers carry smartphones loaded with software that allows them to communicate with the control centre.
Once they determine the nature and severity of the threat, the control room guides them on the ground to resolve the incident.
Video footage and other data collected as part of the operation can then be stored under an “incident card” in the system.
This particular incident is merely a simulation, presented to Al Jazeera during an exclusive tour and preview of the Centaur system.
The aim of the programme, according to Greek officials, is to ensure the safety of those who live inside the camps and in surrounding communities.
“We use technology to prevent violence, to prevent events like we had in Moria – the arson of the camp. Because safety is critical for everyone,” Greek Migration Minister Notis Mitarachi told Al Jazeera at the November inauguration of a new, EU-funded “closed-controlled” refugee camp on Kos island, one of the first facilities to be connected to the Centaur system.
‘Dystopian’ surveillance project
Nearly 40 cameras are being installed in each camp, which can be operated from the control room.
There will also be thermal cameras, drones, and other technology – including augmented reality glasses, which will be distributed to police and private security personnel.
“This was not to monitor and invade the privacy of the people [in the camps],” said Salis, one of the architects of Centaur. “You’re not monitoring them. You’re trying to prevent bad things from happening.”
Greek authorities headline this new surveillance as a form of security but civil society groups and European lawmakers have criticised the move.
“This fits a broader trend of the EU pouring public money into dystopian and experimental surveillance projects, which treat human beings as lab rats,” Ella Jakubowska, policy and campaigns officer at European Digital Rights (EDRi), told Al Jazeera. “Money which could be used to help people is instead used to punish them, all while the surveillance industry makes vast profits selling false promises of magical technology that claims to fix complex structural issues.”
Recent reporting, which revealed Centaur will be partly financed by the EU COVID Recovery fund, has led a group of European lawmakers to write to the European Commission with their concerns about its implementation.
Homo Digitalis, a Greek digital rights advocacy group, and EDRi said they made several requests for information on what data protection assessments were carried out before the development and deployment of Centaur.
Such analysis is required under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). They have also asked what data will be collected and how long it will be held by authorities. Those requests, they said, have gone unanswered.
The Greek Migration Ministry did not respond to Al Jazeera’s query on whether an impact assessment was completed, and on policies regarding data retention and the processing of data related to children.
In Samos, mixed feelings
Advocates in Samos told Al Jazeera they raised concerns about camp residents being adequately notified about the presence of these technologies.
But Salis, at the control centre, said this has been achieved through “signs – a lot of signs”, in the camps.
The system does not currently incorporate facial recognition technology, at least “not yet”, according to Leonidas Petavrakis, a digital software specialist with ESA Security Solutions S.A., one of the companies contracted for the Centaur project.
The potential use of facial recognition in this context is “a big concern”, said Konstantinos Kakavoulis of Homo Digitalis.
Facial recognition systems often misidentify people of colour and can lead to wrongful arrests and convictions, according to studies. Human rights organisations globally have called for their use to be limited or banned.
An EU proposal on regulating artificial intelligence, unveiled by the European Commission in April, does not go far enough to prevent the misuse of AI systems, critics claim.
For some of those living under the glare of this EU-funded surveillance system, the feeling is mixed.
Mohammed, a 25-year-old refugee from Palestine living in the new Samos camp, said that he did not always mind the cameras as he thought they might prevent fights, which broke out frequently at the former Samos camp.
“Sometimes it’s [a] good feeling because it makes you feel safe, sometimes not,” he said but added that the sense of security came at a price.
“There’s not a lot of difference between this camp and a prison.”
▻https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/12/24/greece-pilots-high-tech-surveillance-system-in-refugee-camps
#Grèce #réfugiés #asile #migrations #surveillance #complexe_militaro-industriel #drones #caméras_thérmiques #Samos #îles #camps_de_réfugiés #Centaur #algorythme #salle_de_contrôle #menace #technologie #EU_COVID_Recovery_fund #reconnaissance_faciale #intelligence_artificielle #AI #IA
–—
sur ces nouveaux camps de réfugiés fermés (et surveillés) dans les #îles grecques notamment :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/917173
ping @etraces
Greece plans automated drones to spot people crossing border
The Greek Migration Ministry announced it would use EU-funded drones with “Artificial Intelligence” to track people seeking refuge at the border. Promises that they will also improve search and rescue operations ring hollow.
At the opening of the Thessaloniki International Trade Fair this September, Greek migration minister Notis Mitarakis – otherwise known for dismissing the ongoing evidence of Greek border guards’ brutal and illegal pushbacks of asylum seekers as “fake news” – made national headlines when he introduced his ministry’s latest project: €3.7m funding for drones with “innovative algorithms” that can “automatically identify defined targets of interest” at the Greek border.
What did he mean? In a demo video, two men – one in sunglasses and a red shirt, another blurred – walk next to a line drawn through a field, with boxes marking them as “person”. As the guy in sunglasses walks closer towards the line, he gets labeled as “person of interest”. He starts running, jumps over the line, runs, lies down on a bench, disappearing from view. When he gets up, the box keeps tracking him.
EU funding for Greek security projects
“I actually recognize people from my department in this video”, one IT researcher told us, chuckling, at the Greek Ministry for Migration’s stall at the Thessaloniki Trade Fair on 13 September.
His department – the Information Technologies Institute at the Center for Research and Technology Hellas (CERTH) – is in a quiet building in the outskirts of Thessaloniki. Here, researchers work on 27 different projects, mostly funded by the European Commission.
The first time CERTH got funding for a security project was in 2017, when the European Union’s research and innovation program Horizon 2020 paid them to coordinate “ROBORDER”, an €8m project which aimed to develop and pilot “a fully autonomous border surveillance system” where, researchers said, robots will be able to identify humans and independently decide if they represent a threat. These days, the CERTH researcher says, there is a lot of interest from European institutions for funding “security projects”.
REACTION
Now, REACTION, or “Real-Time Artificial Intelligence for Border Surveillance” will also be CERTH-coordinated and funded by the European Commission’s Migration and Home Affairs Fund. It is set to start in November 2022, and run for 36 months.
Computer scientist Stathes Hadjiefthymiades, who is part of the REACTION team, said they want to combine the research from ROBORDER and “AIDERS” – another EU-funded project aimed at processing data from drones, sensors and cameras to “improve emergency responses” in case of a fire, flood or shipwreck. The aim, he says, is to bring the technologies – “or goodies”, as he calls them – into the hands of the police, who want drones (as well as thermal sensors, motion detectors and cameras already installed at the Greek border) to alert them of border crossings.
Once alerted, law enforcement will “not necessarily” stop people from crossing into Greece, Mr Hadjiefthymiades said. They could also be arrested or brought to camps and be instructed on how to apply for asylum. He added that pushbacks, which Amnesty International describes as “Greece’s de facto border policy”, are “in the news” but he does not believe that Greek border guards are pushing boats of asylum seekers back to Turkey.
“Innovative algorithms”
In his speech at the Thessaloniki Trade Fair, migration minister Mr Mitarakis said REACTION’s “use of artificial intelligence” will allow drones to identify and monitor “targets of interest”. However, one young man from the research consortium told us that “[the Migration Ministry] do not really know anything about what we are doing”, because they are “in a different field” and are “end users”.
At the Thessaloniki Trade Fair, three drones were on display at the Greek Migration Ministry’s stall. Two were from the Chinese commercial drone maker DJI. The third was wrapped in wires and was, a presenter explained, trained to do what Mr Mitarakis said: scan an area, and, if it spots something “more interesting”, like a person crossing a border, independently change its course to track this person. However, the presenter told us, it is the only drone they have that can do this, because “on-board processing” is very expensive and requires a lot of energy.
Mr Hadjiefthymiades confirmed that they were “dealing with reduced-size drones with limited on-board power. We are struggling to do on-board intelligence with off-the-shelf drones.”
In the brochure for REACTION, the Greek migration ministry says that one of the project’s aims is “to use the funding to buy equipment needed for the border project.”
Search and Rescue
After police are alerted about a person or vehicle crossing the Greek border, “they will go see what is happening”, the young man from the research consortium told us. A woman, overhearing this, said angrily, “I will tell you what they do, they will either come with guns to shoot, or they will beat them”. Later, the young man admitted, “For me, the one thing is, I don’t know exactly what the police will do to the migrants after we alert them.” He grimaced. “But what can I do,” he said.
When asked about REACTION’s claim that it will be used for “search and rescue”, the young man said he believed that people at the “Multimedia Knowledge Lab” at CERTH are training an algorithm to spot if someone is injured at the border. But Yiannis Kompatsiaris, a senior researcher there, told us that his lab is not currently training such an algorithm.
In recent years, the Greek Coast Guard, like other European authorities, was repeatedly accused of delaying rescue operations. Earlier this month, Deutsche Welle published a report which showed that Greek authorities left a group of 38 asylum-seekers stranded on an islet on the Evros river, which marks most of the border between Greece and Turkey, despite a nearby pylon with heat sensors and cameras, which should have been able to immediately locate the group.
Since 2017, open-source researcher Phevos Simeonidis tracks local and EU-funded border surveillance projects in Greece. So far, he says, “this ever-increasing apparatus always seems to fall short of assisting search and rescue, and also evidently turns a blind eye when footage or data could help individuals substantiate claims that they have been victims of human rights violations.”
▻https://algorithmwatch.org/en/greece-plans-automated-drones
#AI #IA #intelligence_artificielle #Real-Time_Artificial_Intelligence_for_Border_Surveillance #REACTION #ROBORDER #AIDERS #CERTH
En #Grèce, des camps de migrants aux allures de « #prisons » vantés par Darmanin
Athènes vient d’ouvrir son premier « #centre_fermé » pour les demandeurs d’asile à #Samos, une île grecque proche de la Turquie. Érigé en exemple par le ministre de l’intérieur français, ce centre est une « prison » pour beaucoup d’ONG.
#centres_fermés #asile #migrations #réfugiés #îles #clôtures #barbelés #financement #Zervou #Prokeka #déboutés #conteneurs #G4S #camp-prison #centre_d'attente #murs #Mytilineos #Terna #business #coût #surveillance #complexe_militaro-industriel #drones #vidéosurveillance #salle_de_contrôle #intelligence_artificielle #Centaure #sécurité_digitale #Rhéa #Hypérion #programme_de_surveillance #NextGenerationEU #Facilité_pour_la_reprise_et_la_résilience (#FRR) #caméras #caméras_de_vidéosurveillance #HCR #OIM #IOM #Europol #privatisation #attente #internement #enfermement #modèle
Des maux et des remèdes, une histoire de pharmaciens le Devoir - Jean-François Nadeau - 21 avril 2018
▻https://www.ledevoir.com/lire/525797/une-histoire-des-pharmaciens-des-remedes-de-grands-meres-a-l-apothicaire
Lorsque le chirurgien Michel Sarrazin procède, au printemps de 1700, à l’ablation à froid du sein cancéreux d’une religieuse montréalaise, la malheureuse risque d’y passer. Soeur Marie Barbier va pourtant survivre 39 ans à cette opération, première du genre en Amérique. Pour éviter l’infection de sa plaie, on utilisera l’« #onguent divin », alors très populaire, explique en entrevue Gilles Barbeau, ancien doyen de la Faculté de pharmacie de l’Université Laval, qui vient de faire paraître Curieuses histoires d’apothicaires.
Cet « onguent divin », les religieuses souhaitent l’utiliser en toutes circonstances. Il s’agit en fait d’un mélange de mine de plomb rouge, d’huile d’olive et de cire jaune. « Les métaux comme le plomb ou le cuivre ont une certaine propriété antiseptique », précise le professeur émérite.
L’« onguent divin » s’inspire d’un manuel de la bibliothèque des Jésuites intitulé Remèdes universels pour les pauvres gens. Le pharmacien réservera longtemps les produits locaux aux gens de peu de moyens. Ceux qui le peuvent s’offrent des remèdes venus de loin, forcément meilleurs puisqu’on les paye plus cher…
Peu de médicaments en vente libre sont encore tirés directement de plantes. Mais c’est bien la nature, explique #Gilles_Barbeau, qui a inspiré plusieurs médicaments. « Se soigner par les plantes, chercher à se soulager et à guérir des blessures fut non seulement un geste naturel des premiers êtres humains, mais une activité presque instinctive. » La #centaurée et la #rose_trémière étaient déjà utilisées il y a 40 000 ans pour leurs propriétés. L’#ail, l’#aloès, les graines de #pavot, l’#aubépine, la #camomille, la #mandragore, pour ne nommer qu’eux, servent aussi. « Les Nord-Américains ont pris l’habitude de prendre tout ça en pilules, alors que les effets favorables de la plante sont sous cette forme à peu près nuls », dit M. Barbeau.
Le vieux métier
Depuis les profondeurs du temps existe ce métier qui consiste à préparer des #médicaments, auquel nous identifions aujourd’hui le #pharmacien. « L’histoire des pharmaciens est obscurcie par la place qu’a prise l’histoire de la médecine », regrette Gilles Barbeau.
L’apothicaire est l’ancêtre du pharmacien. Il se trouve à cette jonction mal éclairée où se rencontrent le botaniste, l’alchimiste, l’épicier, le chimiste et le charlatan. Au Québec, le mot « #apothicaire », présent aussi en Angleterre, reste accolé à la pharmacie jusqu’au début du XXe siècle.
Des plantes
Gilles Barbeau se souvient d’une journée passée à marcher avec son grand-père. L’homme, né en 1875, amenait son petit-fils près de la rivière cueillir de la #savoyane, une plante qu’il utilisait pour contrer les ulcères de bouche. « Ma grand-mère ramassait aussi des #plantes_médicinales. Ce fut mon premier contact, sans le savoir, avec la #botanique médicale. » Parmi les plantes dont Barbeau parle pour traiter de l’histoire des pharmaciens, on trouve l’#achillée_millefeuille, très commune dans les campagnes québécoises, utilisée en infusion pour ses vertus gastriques.
L’histoire a gardé dans ses replis des savoirs anciens que Gilles Barbeau révèle au hasard de sa volonté première, qui est de faire connaître l’histoire de pharmaciens, des savants à qui nous devons parfois beaucoup.
Vin et cocaïne
Au nombre des historiettes passionnantes que narre le professeur, on trouve celle d’Angelo #Mariani, médecin d’origine corse. Mariani développe un vin fait à base de coca. « Ce vin va être très populaire pour soigner les acteurs et les actrices. Zola, Massenet, même le pape Léon XIII, vont aussi chanter la gloire du vin Mariani. Aux États-Unis, plusieurs caisses de vin Mariani sont importées. Un pharmacien va les distiller pour produire un sirop. Et c’est avec de l’eau et ce sirop qu’on va produire les premières bouteilles de Coca-Cola. »
Que doit-on à Louis Hébert, premier apothicaire sur les rives du Saint-Laurent ? « Il va envoyer une quarantaine de plantes nouvelles en France, sans doute grâce aux #Amérindiens. » Dans les biographies édifiantes de cet apothicaire, on retiendra souvent qu’il suggérait de manger une pomme par jour. Pas de pommes pourtant en Nouvelle-France… La confusion viendrait de sa découverte d’une plante surnommée « #pomme_de_mai », déjà connue chez les #Hurons. Le frère botaniste Marie-Victorin la nommera Podophyllumn peltatum. Cette plante possède des propriétés purgatives puissantes. C’est un de ses dérivés qui est utilisé dans les célèbres pilules Carter’s pour le foie, commercialisées jusqu’en 1992. Au XIXe siècle, observe Gilles Barbeau, cette plante se trouve à la base de presque tous les médicaments censés traiter les maladies inflammatoires. Les observations d’un pharmacien britannique, Robert Bentley, vont montrer qu’une résine fabriquée à partir de cette plante possède un effet favorable au traitement des #tumeurs cutanées. « Et cela a donné un #anticancéreux puissant, toujours utilisé pour les traitements du cancer du sein », raconte M. Barbeau.
On trouve de tout chez les pharmaciens, mais par forcément des amis. Dans la Grèce antique, #pharmakon veut d’ailleurs tout aussi bien dire poison que remède. Ces commerces sont souvent des lieux où le marchand est vu comme un menteur, un voleur, un empoisonneur, un malhonnête, un charlatan.
Mauvaise humeur
La théorie antique dite des #humeurs va longtemps dominer les usages de la pharmacie. On trouve une formidable illustration de ces théories fantaisistes dans Le malade imaginaire de Molière, où un « clystère insinuatif, préparatif, et rémollient » est d’entrée de jeu présenté comme une nécessité « pour amollir, humecter, et rafraîchir les entrailles de Monsieur »… En fonction d’un principe d’équilibre des liquides du corps, tous les maux sont à soigner à partir de simagrées, de saignées ou de purgatifs injectés dans le corps par un instrument appelé clystère.
Encore au XIXe siècle, l’un des inventeurs du cinéma, #Auguste_Lumière, trouve dans ses usines chimiques des #hyposulfites qui, croit-il, permettent de dissoudre les « floculations », des cellules mortes qui en viennent à se précipiter dans le système, ce qui selon lui serait à la base de tous les ennuis de santé. On nage encore dans la théorie des humeurs.
L’irrationnel s’avale bien. « Au XIXe siècle, en médecine populaire, le traitement de maladies comme la #teigne s’envisage avec un sirop fait d’écorces de #tremble qu’on prendra soin de couper à la pleine lune », souligne M. Barbeau, le concours des astres étant apparemment aussi important que celui des dieux sur l’effet des médicaments…
Ainsi le développement de la pharmacie a-t-il longtemps donné la main à une science de l’à-peu-près dont la puissance tenait beaucoup à des effets de langage. Des esprits sensibles à la rigueur de l’analyse vont lui imposer une autre direction. La maladie, selon les enseignements de #Paracelse, est éventuellement envisagée comme un phénomène biochimique.
Dans son #histoire des pharmaciens, Gilles Barbeau estime tout particulièrement la découverte faite par Friedrich Sertüner, un jeune stagiaire. « C’est lui qui a pour ainsi dire découvert la #morphine. C’est universel aujourd’hui. Elle permet d’aller plus doucement vers la mort », dit-il. De toutes les découvertes faites par le passé, la morphine a encore beaucoup d’avenir, croit M. Barbeau.
