#reconnaissance_faciale

From GPS tagging to facial recognition watches: expanding the surveillance of migrants in the UK

https://irr.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/EM-Monish-Featured-Image-.001-768x402.jpeg

Through its use of GPS tags and smartwatches in immigration enforcement, the UK is extending the reach of surveillance and control of migrants to frightening levels.

In early August, we learned that the Ministry of Justice had awarded a £6m contract for ‘facial recognition smartwatches’ to be worn by foreign national offenders. The devices will track their GPS location 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and will require them to scan their faces up to five times a day. The information obtained from the devices, including names, date of birth, nationality, photographs, and location data, will be stored for up to six years and may be accessed by the Home Office and shared with law and border enforcement agencies.

This is just the latest intrusive electronic monitoring (EM) technology to be used on migrants, after the Home Office moved from ‘traditional’ radio frequency tags (which measure the distance between the tag and the subject’s home) to GPS tags (which monitor the subject’s precise location 24/7). Electronic monitoring has been a key part of criminal justice for many years throughout the world, operational in many US states since the 1980s and implemented in England and Wales under the Criminal Justice Act 1991. It was introduced to address prison overcrowding and the rising costs of incarceration by diverting offenders from custody, but it is doubtful whether EM actually shrinks the size of prison populations or simply expands criminal justice interventions through a ‘net-widening effect’ – a 2016 comparative study found that high use of imprisonment is linked to high use of EM.[i] England and Wales now has the highest number of offenders subjected to this technology in the world,[ii] and has extended its use to immigration enforcement, through the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc) Act 2004. (In the US, it was extended to immigration control in about 2002.) As far as we know, Britain is the only state in Europe to use EM in the migration arena.

EM is used as a condition by the Home Office for people released from immigration detention on bail, added to conditions such as reporting to the immigration authorities or staying at the property stated on the bail application, for those the Home Office considers at risk of absconding. One of the key differences in the use of EM within the criminal justice and immigration systems is time: whilst criminal sentences involving EM are determinate in nature, the immigration system uses it with no upper limit nor clear guidelines around time. Home Office guidance says tags are most likely to be used on individuals posing a ‘high risk of harm to the public’, but it is not just foreign nationals who have completed their sentences who are tagged: a 12-month pilot scheme began in June to test electronic monitoring on any asylum seekers who arrive in the UK by ‘unnecessary and dangerous’ routes.
Alternative to detention?

It is now well-known that detention centres are harmful, exacerbating mental distress and anxiety amongst those confined, leading too often to suicide and self-harm. EM has been described as an alternative to detention, and its use may seem attractive to certain anti-detention activists for humanitarian reasons. However, EM (and other alternative measures, such as signing at the reporting centres) represent a net-widening of interventions. More importantly, although tagging is not supposed to be punitive – it is an ‘administrative measure’ enforced by the Home Office and the immigration tribunal, not the criminal courts – it is experienced as punishment and deprivation of liberty by those subjected to it. Less intrusive alternatives have an equally high compliance rate: after the US Family Case Management Program (FCMP) was implemented, in which families received caseworker support without having to wear an ankle monitor, they had 99 per cent compliance with court appearances and ICE appointments. A similar pattern was noted across other initiatives where the compliance rate was 100 per cent and rate of absconding 0 per cent. And in the UK, an FOI request to the Home Office revealed that in 2019 only three percent of those released from detention without EM absconded, and only one percent in 2020. As Bail for Immigration Detainees noted, ‘With rates of absconding so low, [EM] is designed to solve a problem that does not exist.’
Mental distress

Bhatia’s research on the impact of EM on mental health[iii] revealed that migrants consider EM as punishment, triggering the feeling of perpetual confinement and the constant feeling of being watched. The individuals were not able to carry on with their daily activities and they were perceived as ‘dangerous’ (non-white) persons in public spaces. The criminalising, dehumanising and degrading effects of EM resulted in deeper exclusion and isolation, and mental distress. As one research participant explained: ‘I felt in prison with that thing [i.e. tag] . . . they came every week to check the tag. I was very upset and thinking, I keep talking to myself: “what has happened to me?”. All I did was smoke drugs, take pills at house and fall asleep. So much pressure and depression and no freedom . . . I have not done anything wrong. I just wanted life. This is shit life, this is no life. Whenever I don’t take drug, I felt like suicide.’

Total surveillance

When Bhatia did his research on the impact of EM on migrants’ mental health, monitoring of migrants relied on traditional radio frequency tags rather than GPS tags. In 2021, the Home Office introduced GPS tagging for immigration bail. While ‘traditional’ radio frequency tags merely measure the distance between the tag and a base station in the subject’s home, usually in order to enforce a curfew, GPS tags monitor subjects’ precise location 24/7, generating a considerable volume of ‘trail data’, which is stored for years. Trail data is highly sensitive – it provides deep insight into intimate details of an individual’s life, revealing a comprehensive picture of everyday habits and movements, permanent or temporary places of residence, hobbies and other activities, social relationships, political, religious or philosophical interests, health concerns, consumption patterns, etc – data that is absolutely unnecessary and disproportionate to the stated purpose of monitoring bail compliance and preventing absconding.

The Home Office can access the entire trail data every time a breach of bail conditions is detected by the tag (eg, breaching a curfew, entering an exclusion zone, or failing to charge the tag’s battery). It has also claimed the right to review trail data in order to assess tagged individuals’ claims to private and family life (a way to resist removal through human rights law). This use of trail data falls entirely outside the scope of the legislation, and arguably violates not just privacy and data protection but other rights too – the knowledge that every single movement is monitored, and may be used to justify refusal of applications, is a serious limitation on freedom of movement, assembly and association. This is why in August 2022, Privacy International filed a complaint with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office, on the grounds of breaches of data protection and human rights law.
Errors and discrimination

Tagging is operated exclusively by the private sector in England and Wales, and the EM market is highly oligopolistic, with only four or five companies bidding for lucrative government contracts. Despite the sparse or inconclusive evidence around the effectiveness of the technology, and ongoing Serious Fraud Office investigations of G4S, one of the main players in the market, the company was awarded a £22 million contract in May 2022 by the government. Serious concerns have been raised over the lack of independent oversight of the EM industry and insufficient monitoring by government bodies.

This is particularly concerning given that the technology involved in GPS tags is prone to failures and inaccuracies, leading to wrongful accusations of breach of bail conditions and inaccurate compliance records. GPS location data can be inaccurate, sometimes by 100 metres or more, depending on the surrounding environment – for example, highly built-up areas will cause a GPS signal to ‘drift’ and record inaccurate locations. In addition, the tags used by the Home Office have been reported to suffer from serious battery issues, with people reporting having to charge them multiple times a day. This is a serious problem, as battery depletion is usually deemed a breach of bail conditions – it therefore triggers an alert and entitles the Home Office to review all trail data. In addition, applications based on family and private life may be wrongfully refused on the basis of such inaccurate trail data. In August 2022, Privacy International filed a complaint with the UK’s Forensic Science Regulator about systemic failures in relation to the quality and accuracy of data extracted from the devices.

Facial recognition smartwatches are meant to be ‘less invasive’ and ‘more proportionate’ than GPS ankle tags – but in fact are likely to cause more harm to non-white people. Facial recognition is known to be a discriminatory technology that regularly misidentifies people of colour and is disproportionately used against minorities. Facial recognition algorithms are usually trained on non-representative datasets of faces, and their design is often infused with existing racial biases – meaning that non-white people are more often misidentified. This will inevitably cause additional levels of anxiety to non-white people who have to wear these, and to false allegations and excessive enforcement against them.
Fighting Back

Over 40 human rights groups condemned the introduction of GPS tags (without consultation) in June 2021, as ‘an extension of immigration detention beyond the physical walls of detention centres and prisons’. Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy, vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on immigration detention, described 24/7 tracking via GPS tags as ‘a Trojan horse which would grant the Home Office expansive new surveillance powers which would extend well beyond their stated purpose’. A number of legal challenges have been launched, in addition to Privacy International’s complaints. As Rudy Schulkind of Bail for Immigration Detainees said, ‘This is a thoroughly dehumanising policy designed to ensure that certain people can never be allowed to enjoy a moment of peace, dignity or community.’ The race to acquire invasive surveillance technologies leads a considerable amount of public funds to line the pockets of tech companies, instead of spending these funds on support for vulnerable migrants, dealing with the backlog of immigration applications, and generally useful, respectful and lawful policies.

[i] A. Hucklesby et al., ‘Creativity and effectiveness in the use of electronic monitoring: a case study of five European jurisdictions’, European Commission briefing paper, 2016.

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Bhatia, M, ‘Racial surveillance and the mental health impacts of electronic monitoring on migrants’, Race & Class, 2021 62(3):18-36. doi:10.1177/0306396820963485

▻https://irr.org.uk/article/from-gps-tagging-to-facial-recognition-watches-expanding-the-surveillance-of

#surveillance #migrations #asile #réfugiés #UK #Angleterre #reconnaissance_faciale #AI #IA #GPS #géolocalisation #surveillance_électronique

ping @isskein

Classer pour dominer [et réprimer] : petite Histoire critique du fichage en France | LQDN | 07.09.22

►https://www.laquadrature.net/2022/09/07/classer-pour-dominer-petite-histoire-critique-du-fichage-en-france

Qui c’est les plus forts ? Évidemment c’est les Bleus !

Finalement abandonné face à la controverse, le projet SAFARI déboucha sur une commission d’enquête qui donna naissance à la Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés (CNIL) et à la loi Informatique et Libertés du 6 janvier 1978, socle de la protection des données personnelles encore en vigueur aujourd’hui. Au-delà de la création d’un encadrement juridique, cet épisode marque une amorce de politisation sur le sujet. Cette réflexion avait d’ailleurs débuté avant ce scandale, le directeur du « service des écoles et techniques » mentionné plus haut écrivait lui-même en 1969 :

« La mise en mémoire d’un certain nombre de données n’est-elle pas attentatoire à la liberté et même à la dignité de l’homme ? Ne présente t-elle pas des dangers si nous connaissons à nouveau comme naguère la férule d’un État totalitaire, le joug d’une police politique orientée non vers le maintien de l’ordre public, la prévention et la répression des crimes, mais vers l’asservissement des citoyens libres, privés par une minorité de leurs moyens d’expression ? Le problème vaut qu’on y réfléchisse longuement et profondément ».

[sauf que]

Malheureusement ce ne fut pas le cas, ces pratiques d’identification de surveillance étant probablement bien trop ancrées dans les rouages de l’institution policière.

Dès les années 1980, avec la généralisation des ordinateurs, la police commençait à collecter des informations de façon massive et désordonnée. Plutôt que de limiter ces pratiques, il fut au contraire décidé de rationaliser et d’organiser cette quantité de données au sein de fichiers centralisés pour en tirer une utilité. C’est dans ce contexte qu’est apparue l’idée du fichier STIC (Système de traitement des infractions constatées), visant à intégrer toutes les informations exploitées par les services de police dans une seule et même architecture, accessible à tous les échelons du territoire. Finalement mis en œuvre et expérimenté dans les années 1990, le fichier STIC cristallisa de nombreuses tensions entre le Ministère de l’Intérieur et la CNIL qui durent négocier pendant plusieurs années afin d’en fixer le cadre légal. Si la CNIL a obtenu des garanties dans un accord à l’arrachée en 1998, cette victoire a paradoxalement signé la fin de son influence et de sa légitimité. En effet, dans les années qui suivirent, toutes les réserves qu’elles avait pu obtenir ont été ostensiblement bafouées. Mais surtout, cette longue bataille qui avait concrètement ralenti et empêché le développement du fichier souhaité par le Ministère poussa le gouvernement à supprimer par la suite le pouvoir d’autorisation attribué à la CNIL afin de ne plus être gêné dans ses projets. C’est pourquoi, en 2004, la modification de la Loi pour la confiance dans l’économie numérique (LCEN) acta la suppression du pouvoir de contrainte de la CNIL pour le transformer en simple avis consultatif. Cela signifie qu’elle ne dispose plus de l’autorité nécessaire pour empêcher ou limiter la création de fichiers de police par le gouvernement. Cette modification législative marque un tournant dans le droit des fichiers et des données personnelles ainsi que dans la pratique policière. Les garde-fous ayant sauté, l’espace politique pour parvenir à une surveillance massive se libère, les limites légales devenant purement cosmétiques.

#chassez_le_naturel

« Les #réfugiés sont les #cobayes des futures mesures de #surveillance »

Les dangers de l’émigration vers l’Europe vont croissant, déplore Mark Akkerman, qui étudie la #militarisation_des_frontières du continent depuis 2016. Un mouvement largement poussé par le #lobby de l’#industrie_de_l’armement et de la sécurité.

Mark Akkerman étudie depuis 2016 la militarisation des frontières européennes. Chercheur pour l’ONG anti-militariste #Stop_Wapenhandel, il a publié, avec le soutien de The Transnational Institute, plusieurs rapports de référence sur l’industrie des « #Safe_Borders ». Il revient pour Mediapart sur des années de politiques européennes de surveillance aux frontières.

Mediapart : En 2016, vous publiez un premier rapport, « Borders Wars », qui cartographie la surveillance aux frontières en Europe. Dans quel contexte naît ce travail ?

Mark Akkerman : Il faut se rappeler que l’Europe a une longue histoire avec la traque des migrants et la sécurisation des frontières, qui remonte, comme l’a montré la journaliste d’investigation néerlandaise Linda Polman, à la Seconde Guerre mondiale et au refus de soutenir et abriter des réfugiés juifs d’Allemagne. Dès la création de l’espace Schengen, au début des années 1990, l’ouverture des frontières à l’intérieur de cet espace était étroitement liée au renforcement du contrôle et de la sécurité aux frontières extérieures. Depuis lors, il s’agit d’un processus continu marqué par plusieurs phases d’accélération.

Notre premier rapport (►https://www.tni.org/en/publication/border-wars) est né durant l’une de ces phases. J’ai commencé ce travail en 2015, au moment où émerge le terme « crise migratoire », que je qualifierais plutôt de tragédie de l’exil. De nombreuses personnes, principalement motivées par la guerre en Syrie, tentent alors de trouver un avenir sûr en Europe. En réponse, l’Union et ses États membres concentrent leurs efforts sur la sécurisation des frontières et le renvoi des personnes exilées en dehors du territoire européen.

Cela passe pour une part importante par la militarisation des frontières, par le renforcement des pouvoirs de Frontex et de ses financements. Les réfugiés sont dépeints comme une menace pour la sécurité de l’Europe, les migrations comme un « problème de sécurité ». C’est un récit largement poussé par le lobby de l’industrie militaire et de la sécurité, qui a été le principal bénéficiaire de ces politiques, des budgets croissants et des contrats conclus dans ce contexte.

Cinq ans après votre premier rapport, quel regard portez-vous sur la politique européenne de sécurisation des frontières ? La pandémie a-t-elle influencé cette politique ?

Depuis 2016, l’Europe est restée sur la même voie. Renforcer, militariser et externaliser la sécurité aux frontières sont les seules réponses aux migrations. Davantage de murs et de clôtures ont été érigés, de nouveaux équipements de surveillance, de détection et de contrôle ont été installés, de nouveaux accords avec des pays tiers ont été conclus, de nouvelles bases de données destinées à traquer les personnes exilées ont été créées. En ce sens, les politiques visibles en 2016 ont été poursuivies, intensifiées et élargies.

La pandémie de Covid-19 a certainement joué un rôle dans ce processus. De nombreux pays ont introduit de nouvelles mesures de sécurité et de contrôle aux frontières pour contenir le virus. Cela a également servi d’excuse pour cibler à nouveau les réfugiés, les présentant encore une fois comme des menaces, responsables de la propagation du virus.

Comme toujours, une partie de ces mesures temporaires vont se pérenniser et on constate déjà, par exemple, l’évolution des contrôles aux frontières vers l’utilisation de technologies biométriques sans contact.

En 2020, l’UE a choisi Idemia et Sopra Steria, deux entreprises françaises, pour construire un fichier de contrôle biométrique destiné à réguler les entrées et sorties de l’espace Schengen. Quel regard portez-vous sur ces bases de données ?

Il existe de nombreuses bases de données biométriques utilisées pour la sécurité aux frontières. L’Union européenne met depuis plusieurs années l’accent sur leur développement. Plus récemment, elle insiste sur leur nécessaire connexion, leur prétendue interopérabilité. L’objectif est de créer un système global de détection, de surveillance et de suivi des mouvements de réfugiés à l’échelle européenne pour faciliter leur détention et leur expulsion.

Cela contribue à créer une nouvelle forme d’« apartheid ». Ces fichiers sont destinés certes à accélérer les processus de contrôles aux frontières pour les citoyens nationaux et autres voyageurs acceptables mais, surtout, à arrêter ou expulser les migrantes et migrants indésirables grâce à l’utilisation de systèmes informatiques et biométriques toujours plus sophistiqués.

Quelles sont les conséquences concrètes de ces politiques de surveillance ?

Il devient chaque jour plus difficile et dangereux de migrer vers l’Europe. Parce qu’elles sont confrontées à la violence et aux refoulements aux frontières, ces personnes sont obligées de chercher d’autres routes migratoires, souvent plus dangereuses, ce qui crée un vrai marché pour les passeurs. La situation n’est pas meilleure pour les personnes réfugiées qui arrivent à entrer sur le territoire européen. Elles finissent régulièrement en détention, sont expulsées ou sont contraintes de vivre dans des conditions désastreuses en Europe ou dans des pays limitrophes.

Cette politique n’impacte pas que les personnes réfugiées. Elle présente un risque pour les libertés publiques de l’ensemble des Européens. Outre leur usage dans le cadre d’une politique migratoire raciste, les technologies de surveillance sont aussi « testées » sur des personnes migrantes qui peuvent difficilement faire valoir leurs droits, puis introduites plus tard auprès d’un public plus large. Les réfugiés sont les cobayes des futures mesures de contrôle et de surveillance des pays européens.

Vous pointez aussi que les industriels qui fournissent en armement les belligérants de conflits extra-européens, souvent à l’origine de mouvements migratoires, sont ceux qui bénéficient du business des frontières.

C’est ce que fait Thales en France, Leonardo en Italie ou Airbus. Ces entreprises européennes de sécurité et d’armement exportent des armes et des technologies de surveillance partout dans le monde, notamment dans des pays en guerre ou avec des régimes autoritaires. À titre d’exemple, les exportations européennes au Moyen-Orient et en Afrique du Nord des dix dernières années représentent 92 milliards d’euros et concernent des pays aussi controversés que l’Arabie saoudite, l’Égypte ou la Turquie.

Si elles fuient leur pays, les populations civiles exposées à la guerre dans ces régions du monde se retrouveront très certainement confrontées à des technologies produites par les mêmes industriels lors de leur passage aux frontières. C’est une manière profondément cynique de profiter, deux fois, de la misère d’une même population.

Quelles entreprises bénéficient le plus de la politique européenne de surveillance aux frontières ? Par quels mécanismes ? Je pense notamment aux programmes de recherches comme Horizon 2020 et Horizon Europe.

J’identifie deux types d’entreprises qui bénéficient de la militarisation des frontières de l’Europe. D’abord les grandes entreprises européennes d’armement et de sécurité, comme Airbus, Leonardo et Thales, qui disposent toutes d’une importante gamme de technologies militaires et de surveillance. Pour elles, le marché des frontières est un marché parmi d’autres. Ensuite, des entreprises spécialisées, qui travaillent sur des niches, bénéficient aussi directement de cette politique européenne. C’est le cas de l’entreprise espagnole European Security Fencing, qui fabrique des fils barbelés. Elles s’enrichissent en remportant des contrats, à l’échelle européenne, mais aussi nationale, voire locale.

Une autre source de financement est le programme cadre européen pour la recherche et l’innovation. Il finance des projets sur 7 ans et comprend un volet sécurité aux frontières. Des programmes existent aussi au niveau du Fonds européen de défense.

Un de vos travaux de recherche, « Expanding the Fortress », s’intéresse aux partenariats entre l’Europe et des pays tiers. Quels sont les pays concernés ? Comment se manifestent ces partenariats ?

L’UE et ses États membres tentent d’établir une coopération en matière de migrations avec de nombreux pays du monde. L’accent est mis sur les pays identifiés comme des « pays de transit » pour celles et ceux qui aspirent à rejoindre l’Union européenne. L’Europe entretient de nombreux accords avec la Libye, qu’elle équipe notamment en matériel militaire. Il s’agit d’un pays où la torture et la mise à mort des réfugiés ont été largement documentées.

Des accords existent aussi avec l’Égypte, la Tunisie, le Maroc, la Jordanie, le Liban ou encore l’Ukraine. L’Union a financé la construction de centres de détention dans ces pays, dans lesquels on a constaté, à plusieurs reprises, d’importantes violations en matière de droits humains.

Ces pays extra-européens sont-ils des zones d’expérimentations pour les entreprises européennes de surveillance ?

Ce sont plutôt les frontières européennes, comme celle d’Evros, entre la Grèce et la Turquie, qui servent de zone d’expérimentation. Le transfert d’équipements, de technologies et de connaissances pour la sécurité et le contrôle des frontières représente en revanche une partie importante de ces coopérations. Cela veut dire que les États européens dispensent des formations, partagent des renseignements ou fournissent de nouveaux équipements aux forces de sécurité de régimes autoritaires.

Ces régimes peuvent ainsi renforcer et étendre leurs capacités de répression et de violation des droits humains avec le soutien de l’UE. Les conséquences sont dévastatrices pour la population de ces pays, ce qui sert de moteur pour de nouvelles vagues de migration…

▻https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/international/040822/les-refugies-sont-les-cobayes-des-futures-mesures-de-surveillance

cité dans l’interview, ce rapport :
#Global_Climate_Wall
►https://www.tni.org/en/publication/global-climate-wall
déjà signalé ici : ▻https://seenthis.net/messages/934948#message934949

#asile #migrations #complexe_militaro-industriel #surveillance_des_frontières #Frontex #problème #Covid-19 #coronavirus #biométrie #technologie #Idemia #Sopra_Steria #contrôle_biométrique #base_de_données #interopérabilité #détection #apartheid #informatique #violence #refoulement #libertés_publiques #test #normalisation #généralisation #Thales #Leonardo #Airbus #armes #armements #industrie_de_l'armement #cynisme #Horizon_Europe #Horizon_2020 #marché #business #European_Security_Fencing #barbelés #fils_barbelés #recherche #programmes_de_recherche #Fonds_européen_de_défense #accords #externalisation #externalisation_des_contrôles_frontaliers #Égypte #Libye #Tunisie #Maroc #Jordanie #Liban #Ukraine #rétention #détention_administrative #expérimentation #équipements #connaissance #transfert #coopérations #formations #renseignements #répression

ping @isskein @karine4 @_kg_

À #Calais, une #surveillance du ciel au tunnel

#Drones, #reconnaissance_faciale, #capteurs_de_CO2 et de battements cardiaques : face à l’afflux de réfugiés, la frontière franco-britannique est surveillée à grands coups d’#intelligence_artificielle. Premier volet de notre série sur la #cybersurveillance des frontières.

Pablo lève les yeux au ciel et réfléchit. Brusquement, il fixe son ordinateur. Le chargé de communication et plaidoyer chez Human Rights Observers (HRO) fouille dans ses dossiers, ouvre un document d’une quinzaine de pages. « Tu vois, ce jour-là, ils ont utilisé un drone », indique-t-il en pointant l’écran du doigt. Le 9 juin, l’association pour laquelle il travaille assiste à une expulsion de réfugié·es à #Grande-Synthe. Dans son compte-rendu, elle mentionne la présence d’un drone. Des vols d’aéronefs, hélicoptères ou avions, devenus routiniers.

En cette matinée de fin juin, Pablo a donné rendez-vous sur son lieu de travail, « l’entrepôt », comme il l’appelle. Ce vaste bâtiment désaffecté d’une zone industrielle à l’est de Calais héberge plusieurs associations locales. Les bureaux de HRO sont spartiates : un simple préfabriqué blanc planté dans la cour.

C’est ici que ses membres se réunissent pour documenter les #violences d’État perpétrées contre les personnes en situation d’exil à la frontière franco-britannique, plus spécifiquement à Calais et à Grande-Synthe. Depuis plus de 20 ans, la ville est érigée en symbole de la crise migratoire. L’évacuation et la destruction de la jungle en octobre 2016 n’ont rien changé. Désormais réparties dans de multiples camps précaires, des centaines de migrants et migrantes tentent le passage vers l’Angleterre au péril de leur vie. Selon le ministère de l’intérieur, ils et elles étaient 52 000 en 2021, un record, contre « seulement » 10 000 en 2020.

Sous l’impulsion des pouvoirs publics, Calais se barricade. Plus que les maisons de briques rouges, ce sont les #clôtures géantes, les rangées de #barbelés et les #marécages_artificiels qui attirent la vue. Tout semble construit pour décourager les exilé·es de rejoindre la Grande-Bretagne. « Avant, il n’y avait pas tout ça. C’est devenu assez oppressant », regrette Alexandra. Arrivée il y a sept ans dans le Pas-de-Calais, elle travaille pour l’Auberge des migrants, association qui coordonne le projet HRO.

Quatre #caméras empilées sur un pylône à l’entrée du port rappellent que cette frontière n’est pas que physique. #Vidéosurveillance, #drones, #avions, #détecteurs_de_CO2… Le littoral nord incarne le parfait exemple de la « #smart_border ». Une frontière invisible, connectée. Un eldorado pour certaines entreprises du secteur de l’intelligence artificielle, mais un cauchemar pour les exilé·es désormais à la merci des #algorithmes.

Si des dizaines de #caméras lorgnent déjà sur le port et le centre-ville, la tendance n’est pas près de s’inverser. La maire LR, #Natacha_Bouchart, qui n’a pas donné suite à notre demande d’interview, prévoit d’investir 558 000 euros supplémentaires en #vidéosurveillance en 2022.

« C’est la nouvelle étape d’une politique en place depuis plusieurs décennies », analyse Pierre Bonnevalle, politologue, auteur d’un long rapport sur le sujet. À Calais, la #bunkérisation remonte, selon le chercheur, au milieu des années 1990. « À cette époque commencent les premières occupations des espaces portuaires par des personnes venues des pays de l’Est qui souhaitaient rejoindre la Grande-Bretagne. Cela entraîne les premières expulsions, puis un arrêté pris par la préfecture pour interdire l’accès au port. »

Les années suivantes, c’est à #Sangatte que se dessinent les pratiques policières d’aujourd’hui. Dans cette commune limitrophe de Calais, un hangar préfigure ce que sera la « #jungle » et héberge jusqu’à 2 000 exilé·es. « La police cible alors tous ceux qui errent dans la ville, tentent d’ouvrir des squats, de dormir dans un espace boisé. » Une manière de « contenir le problème », de « gagner du temps ».

En parallèle, la ville s’équipe en vidéosurveillance et en barbelés. En 2016, l’expulsion de la jungle fait émerger la politique gouvernementale actuelle : l’#expulsion par les forces de l’ordre, toutes les 24 ou 48 heures, des camps où vivent les personnes exilées.

#Surveillance_aérienne

Calme et grisâtre en ce jour de visite, le ciel calaisien n’est pas épargné. Depuis septembre 2020, l’armée britannique fait voler un drone #Watchkeeper, produit par l’industriel français #Thales, pour surveiller la mer. « Nous restons pleinement déterminés à soutenir le ministère de l’intérieur britannique alors qu’il s’attaque au nombre croissant de petits bateaux traversant la Manche », se félicite l’armée britannique dans un communiqué.

Selon des données de vol consultées par Mediapart, un drone de l’#Agence_européenne_pour_la_sécurité_maritime (#AESM) survole également régulièrement les eaux, officiellement pour analyser les niveaux de pollution des navires qui transitent dans le détroit du Pas-de-Calais. Est-il parfois chargé de missions de surveillance ? L’AESM n’a pas répondu à nos questions.

Au sein du milieu associatif calaisien, la présence de ces volatiles numériques n’étonne personne. « On en voit souvent, comme des hélicoptères équipés de caméras thermiques », confie Marguerite, salariée de l’Auberge des migrants. Chargée de mission au Secours catholique, Juliette Delaplace constate que cette présence complexifie leur travail. « On ne sait pas si ce sont des drones militaires, ou des forces de l’ordre, mais lorsque l’on intervient et que les exilés voient qu’un drone nous survole, c’est très compliqué de gagner leur confiance. »

En décembre 2021, à la suite d’une demande expresse du ministre de l’intérieur, Gérald Darmanin, l’agence européenne #Frontex a dépêché un #avion pour surveiller la côte pendant plusieurs semaines. « Une mission toujours en cours pour patrouiller aux frontières française et belge », précise Frontex.

« On sent une évolution des #contrôles depuis l’intervention de cet avion, qui a œuvré principalement la nuit, confie le maire d’une ville du Nord. Beaucoup de gens tentaient de monter dans des camions, mais cela a diminué depuis que les contrôles se sont durcis. »

Il faut dire que la société #Eurotunnel, qui gère le tunnel sous la Manche, ne lésine pas sur les moyens. En 2019, elle a dépensé 15 millions d’euros pour installer des sas « #Parafe » utilisant la reconnaissance faciale du même nom, mise au point par Thales. Lors du passage de la frontière, certains camions sont examinés par des capteurs de CO2 ou de fréquence cardiaque, ainsi que par de l’#imagerie par #ondes_millimétriques, afin de détecter les personnes qui pourraient s’être cachées dans le chargement.

« C’est un dispositif qui existe depuis 2004, lorsque Nicolas Sarkozy a fait évacuer le camp de Sangatte, informe un porte-parole d’Eurotunnel. Depuis 2015, il y a tellement de demandes de la part des routiers pour passer par ce terminal, car ils peuvent recevoir des amendes si un migrant est trouvé dans leur camion, que nous avons agrandi sa capacité d’accueil et qu’il fait partie intégrante du trajet. »

Des outils de plus en plus perfectionnés qui coïncident avec l’évolution des modes de passage des personnes exilées, analyse le politologue Pierre Bonnevalle. « Pendant longtemps, il s’agissait de surveiller les poids lourds. Le #port et le #tunnel sont aujourd’hui tellement bunkérisés que les exilés traversent en bateau. »

Les technologies employées suivent : en novembre 2021, le ministère de l’intérieur annonçait la mise à disposition de 4 x 4, de lunettes de vision nocturne ou de #caméras_thermiques pour équiper les gendarmes et policiers chargés de lutter contre l’immigration clandestine sur les côtes de la Manche.

« Ces technologies ne servent à rien, à part militariser l’espace public. J’ai encore rencontré des associatifs la semaine dernière qui me disaient que cela n’a aucun impact sur le nombre de passages et les risques pris par ces gens », tempête l’eurodéputé et ancien maire de Grande-Synthe Damien Carême.

Elles ont malgré tout un #coût : 1,28 milliard d’euros depuis 1998, selon Pierre Bonnevalle, dont 425 millions pour la seule période 2017-2021. « C’est une estimation a minima, pointe-t-il. Cela ne prend pas en compte, par exemple, le coût des forces de l’ordre. »

Publié en novembre 2021, un rapport de la commission d’enquête parlementaire sur les migrations détaille les dépenses pour la seule année 2020 : l’État a investi 24,5 millions dans des dispositifs humanitaires d’hébergement, contre 86,4 pour la mobilisation des forces de l’ordre. Des sommes qui désespèrent Pablo, le militant de Human Rights Observers. « Cela aurait permit de bâtir de nombreux centres d’accueil pour que les exilés vivent dans des conditions dignes. » L’État semble avoir d’autres priorités.

#technologie #frontières #contrôles_frontaliers #asile #migrations #réfugiés #surveillance_des_frontières #militarisation_des_frontières #IA #AI #complexe_militaro-industriel #Manche #La_Manche #France #UK #Angleterre
–-

via @olaf #merci :
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/968794

A Face Search Engine Anyone Can Use Is Alarmingly Accurate - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/26/technology/pimeyes-facial-recognition-search.html

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/05/29/business/00PimEyes-Kashmir-Hill/00PimEyes-Kashmir-Hill-facebookJumbo.jpg

The New York Times used PimEyes on the faces of a dozen Times journalists, with their consent, to test its powers.

#PimEyes found photos of every person, some that the journalists had never seen before, even when they were wearing sunglasses or a mask, or their face was turned away from the camera, in the image used to conduct the search.

#vie_privée

Clearview AI vise 100 milliards de portraits dans sa base de données, afin de pouvoir identifier « tout le monde »
▻https://www.lesnumeriques.com/vie-du-net/clearview-ai-vise-100-milliards-de-portraits-dans-sa-base-de-donnees-

En toute discrétion, Clearview AI tente de séduire de nouveaux investisseurs afin de bâtir une base de données inédite de 100 milliards de photos, …

#Intelligence_Artificielle #Technologie #Reconnaissance_faciale

https://dyw7ncnq1en5l.cloudfront.net/optim/news/17/176945/4a2aaabb-clearview-ai-veut-100-milliards-de-portraits-dans-sa-base-de-donnees-afin-de-pouvoir-identifier-tout-le-monde__1200_630__overflow.jpeg

This company says it’s developing a system that can recognize your face from just your DNA | MIT Technology Review
▻https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/01/31/1044576/corsight-face-recognition-from-dna/?truid=a497ecb44646822921c70e7e051f7f1a

https://wp.technologyreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/dna2face-base-wip2.gif?resize=1200,600

A police officer is at the scene of a murder. No witnesses. No camera footage. No obvious suspects or motives. Just a bit of hair on the sleeve of the victim’s jacket. DNA from the cells of one strand is copied and compared against a database. No match comes back, and the case goes cold.

Corsight AI, a facial recognition subsidiary of the Israeli AI company Cortica, purports to be devising a solution for that sort of situation by using DNA to create a model of a face that can then be run through a facial recognition system. It is a task that experts in the field regard as scientifically untenable.

Corsight unveiled its “DNA to Face” product in a presentation by chief executive officer Robert Watts and executive vice president Ofer Ronen intended to court financiers at the Imperial Capital Investors Conference in New York City on December 15. It was part of the company’s overall product road map, which also included movement and voice recognition. The tool “constructs a physical profile by analyzing genetic material collected in a DNA sample,” according to a company slide deck viewed by surveillance research group IPVM and shared with MIT Technology Review.
A photo of Corsight’s investor presentation showing its product roadmap that features “voice to face”, “DNA to face” and “movement” as an expansion of its face recognition capabilities.

Corsight declined a request to answer questions about the presentation and its product road map. “We are not engaging with the press at the moment as the details of what we are doing are company confidential,” Watts wrote in an email.

But marketing materials show that the company is focused on government and law enforcement applications for its technology. Its advisory board consists only of James Woolsey, a former director of the CIA, and Oliver Revell, a former assistant director of the FBI.

To support MIT Technology Review’s journalism, please consider becoming a subscriber.

The science that would be needed to support such a system doesn’t yet exist, however, and experts say the product would exacerbate the ethical, privacy, and bias problems facial recognition technology already causes. More worryingly, it’s a signal of the industry’s ambitions for the future, where face detection becomes one facet of a broader effort to identify people by any available means—even inaccurate ones.

This story was jointly reported with Don Maye of IPVM who said “this presentation was the first time IPVM became aware of a company attempting to commercialize a face recognition product associated with a DNA sample.”
A checkered past

Corsight’s idea is not entirely new. Human Longevity, a “genomics-based, health intelligence” company founded by Silicon Valley celebrities Craig Venter and Peter Diamandis, claimed to have used DNA to predict faces in 2017. MIT Technology Review reported then that experts, however, were doubtful. A former employee of Human Longevity said the company can’t pick a person out of a crowd using a genome, and Yaniv Erlich, chief science officer of the genealogy platform MyHeritage, published a response laying out major flaws in the research.

A small DNA informatics company, Parabon NanoLabs, provides law enforcement agencies with physical depictions of people derived from DNA samples through a product line called Snapshot, which includes genetic genealogy as well as 3D renderings of a face. (Parabon publishes some cases on its website with comparisons between photos of people the authorities are interested in finding and renderings the company has produced.)

Parabon’s computer-generated composites also come with a set of phenotypic characteristics, like eye and skin color, that are given a confidence score. For example, a composite might say that there’s an 80% chance the person being sought has blue eyes. Forensic artists also amend the composites to create finalized face models that incorporate descriptions of nongenetic factors, like weight and age, whenever possible.

Parabon’s website claims its software is helping solve an average of one case per week, and Ellen McRae Greytak, the company’s director of bioinformatics, says it has solved over 600 cases in the past seven years, though most are solved with genetic genealogy rather than composite analysis. Greytak says the company has come under criticism for not publishing its proprietary methods and data; she attributes that to a “business decision.”

Parabon does not package face recognition AI with its phenotyping service, and it stipulates that its law enforcement clients should not use the images it generates from DNA samples as an input into face recognition systems.
Related Story
The pandemic is testing the limits of face recognition

Government use of face ID systems exploded during the pandemic—but tying it to critical services has left some people locked out at the moment they needed help the most.

Parabon’s technology “doesn’t tell you the exact number of millimeters between the eyes or the ratio between the eyes, nose, and mouth,” Greytak says. Without that sort of precision, facial recognition algorithms cannot deliver accurate results—but deriving such precise measurements from DNA would require fundamentally new scientific discoveries, she says, and “the papers that have tried to do prediction at that level have not had a lot of success.” Greytak says Parabon only predicts the general shape of someone’s face (though the scientific feasibility of such prediction has also been questioned).

Police have been known to run forensic sketches based on witness descriptions through facial recognition systems. A 2019 study from Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy and Technology found that at least half a dozen police agencies in the US “permit, if not encourage” using forensic sketches, either hand drawn or computer generated, as input photos for face recognition systems. AI experts have warned that such a process likely leads to lower levels of accuracy.

Corsight also has been criticized in the past for exaggerating the capabilities and accuracy of its face recognition system, which it calls the “most ethical facial recognition system for highly challenging conditions,” according to a slide deck presentation available online. In a technology demo for IPVM last November, Corsight CEO Watts said that Corsight’s face recognition system can “identify someone with a face mask—not just with a face mask, but with a ski mask.” IPVM reported that using Corsight’s AI on a masked face rendered a 65% confidence score, Corsight’s own measure of how likely it is that the face captured will be matched in its database, and noted that the mask is more accurately described as a balaclava or neck gaiter, as opposed to a ski mask with only mouth and eye cutouts.

Broader issues with face recognition technology’s accuracy have been well-documented (including by MIT Technology Review). They are more pronounced when photographs are poorly lit or taken at extreme angles, and when the subjects have darker skin, are women, or are very old or very young. Privacy advocates and the public have also criticized facial recognition technology, particularly systems like Clearview AI that scrape social media as part of their matching engine.

Law enforcement use of the technology is particularly fraught—Boston, Minneapolis, and San Francisco are among the many cities that have banned it. Amazon and Microsoft have stopped selling facial recognition products to police groups, and IBM has taken its face recognition software off the market.
“Pseudoscience”

“The idea that you’re going to be able to create something with the level of granularity and fidelity that’s necessary to run a face match search—to me, that’s preposterous,” says Albert Fox Cahn, a civil rights lawyer and executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, who works extensively on issues related to face recognition systems. “That is pseudoscience.”

Dzemila Sero, a researcher in the Computational Imaging Group of Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica, the national research institute for mathematics and computer science in the Netherlands, says the science to support such a system is not yet sufficiently developed, at least not publicly. Sero says the catalog of genes required to produce accurate depictions of faces from DNA samples is currently incomplete, citing Human Longevity’s 2017 study.

In addition, factors like the environment and aging have substantial effects on faces that can’t be captured through DNA phenotyping, and research has shown that individual genes don’t affect the appearance of someone’s face as much as their gender and ancestry does. “Premature attempts to implement this technique would likely undermine trust and support for genomic research and garner no societal benefit,” she told MIT Technology Review in an email.
The Download
Sign up for your daily dose of what’s up in emerging technology
Enter your email
Get updates and offers from MIT Technology Review
By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy

Sero has studied the reverse concept of Corsight’s system—“face to DNA” rather than “DNA to face”—by matching a set of 3D photographs with a DNA sample. In a paper in Nature, Sero and her team reported accuracy rates between 80% to 83%. Sero says her work should not be used by prosecutors as incriminating evidence, however, and that “these methods also raise undeniable risks of further racial disparities in criminal justice that warrant caution against premature application of the techniques until proper safeguards are in place.”

Law enforcement depends on DNA data sets, predominantly the free ancestry website GEDmatch, which was instrumental in the search for the notorious “Golden State Killer.” But even DNA sampling, once considered the only form of scientifically rigorous forensic evidence by the US National Research Council, has recently come under criticism for problems with accuracy.

Fox Cahn, who is currently suing the New York Police Department to obtain records related to bias in its use of facial recognition technology, says the impact of Corsight’s hypothetical system would be disastrous. “Gaming out the impact this is going to have, it augments every failure case for facial recognition,” says Fox Cahn. “It’s easy to imagine how this could be used in truly frightening and Orwellian ways.”
The future of face recognition tech

Despite such concerns, the market for face recognition technology is growing, and companies are jockeying for customers. Corsight is just one of many offering photo-matching services with flashy new features, regardless of whether they’ve been shown to work.

Many of these new products look to integrate face recognition with another form of recognition. The Russia-based facial recognition company NtechLab, for example, offers systems that identify people based on their license plates as well as facial features, and founder Artem Kuharenko told MIT Technology Review last year that its algorithms try to “extract as much information from the video stream as possible.” In these systems, facial recognition becomes just one part of an apparatus that can identify people by a range of techniques, fusing personal information across connected databases into a sort of data panopticon.

Corsight’s DNA to face system appears to be the company’s foray into building a futuristic, comprehensive surveillance package it can offer to potential buyers. But even as the market for such technologies expands, Corsight and others are at increased risk of commercializing surveillance technologies plagued by bias and inaccuracy.
by Tate Ryan-Mosley

#ADN #Police_scientifique #Reconnaissance_faciale #Hubris_technologique #Société_de_contrôle #Surveillance

#Nice, un laboratoire de la « Safe City » ?
▻https://metropolitiques.eu/Nice-un-laboratoire-de-la-Safe-City.html

Alors que les modes de gouvernement contemporains des villes sont souvent décrits comme dépolitisants, la mise en place des outils numériques de reconnaissance faciale de la safe city fait au contraire resurgir le clivage gauche-droite. La ville intelligente, ou smart city, est souvent revendiquée de manière consensuelle à droite comme à gauche (Courmont et Vincent 2020), de même que le volontarisme en matière de sécurité, qui constitue de plus en plus un incontournable du rôle d’élu local (Le Goff #Terrains

/ Nice, sécurité, #smart_cities, #élus_locaux, #partis

#sécurité
▻https://metropolitiques.eu/IMG/pdf/met_challier2.pdf

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.

https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Migration-Surveillance-Room-22.jpg?resize=770%2C513#.jpg

“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

Tecnologie per il controllo delle frontiere in Italia: identificazione, riconoscimento facciale e finanziamenti europei

https://i.imgur.com/e9KBWCb.png

L’utilizzo documentato di un sistema di riconoscimento facciale da parte dell’amministrazione comunale di Como o da parte della Polizia di Stato italiana ha aperto anche in Italia il dibattito su una tecnologia che all’estero, già da tempo, si critica per la sua inaccuratezza algoritmica e per la poca trasparenza. Un tema sicuramente preoccupante per tutti ma che certamente assume caratteristiche ancor più pericolose quando interessa gruppi o individui particolarmente vulnerabili come migranti, rifugiati e richiedenti asilo. In questo caso i dati e le informazioni sono processati da parte di agenzie governative a fini di sorveglianza e di controllo, con tutele assai minori rispetto ai cittadini europei ed italiani. Ciò comporta un grande rischio per queste persone poiché le procedure di identificazione al loro arrivo in Italia, effettuate all’interno degli hotspot, rischiano di essere un’arma a doppio taglio per la loro permanenza nel nostro Paese (o in Europa), determinando uno stato di sorveglianza continuativa a causa della loro condizione. Ancora una volta alcune categorie di persone sono costrette ad essere “banco di prova” per la sperimentazione di dispositivi di controllo e sorveglianza, a dimostrazione che esistono e si reiterano rapporti di potere anche attraverso la tecnologia, portando alla creazione di due categorie distinte: chi sorveglia e chi è sorvegliato.

Da questa ricerca emerge che le procedure di identificazione e categorizzazione dei migranti, rifugiati o richiedenti asilo fanno ampio utilizzo di dati biometrici—la polizia italiana raccoglie sia le impronte digitali che la foto del loro volto—ma non è sempre facile comprendere in che modo vengano applicate. Nel momento in cui viene effettuata l’identificazione, le categorie sopra citate hanno ben poche possibilità di conoscere appieno il percorso che faranno i loro dati personali e biometrici, nonché di opporsi al peso che poi questo flusso di informazioni avrà sulla loro condizione in Italia e in tutta l’Unione Europea. Quest’ultima, infatti, promuove da alcuni anni la necessità di favorire l’identificazione dei migranti, stranieri e richiedenti asilo attraverso un massiccio utilizzo di tecnologie: a partire dal mare, pattugliato con navi e velivoli a pilotaggio remoto che “scannerizzano” i migranti in arrivo; fino all’approdo sulla terraferma, dove oltre all’imposizione dell’identificazione e del fotosegnalamento i migranti hanno rischiato di vedersi puntata addosso una videocamera “intelligente”.

Ampio spazio è lasciato alla trattazione di come lo stato italiano utilizzi la tecnologia del riconoscimento facciale già da alcuni anni, senza che organizzazioni indipendenti o professionisti possano controllare il suo operato. Oltre alla mancata trasparenza degli algoritmi che lo fanno funzionare, infatti, non sono disponibili informazioni chiare sul numero di persone effettivamente comprese all’interno del database che viene utilizzato proprio per realizzare le corrispondenze tra volti, AFIS (acronimo di Automated Fingerprint Identification System).

Nelle intenzioni della polizia italiana, infatti, c’era l’impiego di un sistema di riconoscimento facciale, SARI Real-Time, per riconoscere in tempo reale l’identità delle persone a bordo di un’imbarcazione durante le fasi di sbarco sulle coste italiane. Il sistema SARI Real-Time, acquistato originariamente per l’utilizzo durante manifestazioni ed eventi pubblici, è stato reso inutilizzabile a seguito della pronuncia negativa del Garante della Privacy: rischierebbe di introdurre una sorveglianza di massa ingiustificata. La decisione del Garante tutela quindi non solo coloro che vivono nel nostro paese ma anche chi, in una situazione di estrema vulnerabilità, arriva sulle nostre coste dopo un viaggio interminabile e si vede sottoposto a un controllo sproporzionato ancor prima di ricevere supporto medico e valutazione dello status legale.

Come Centro Hermes per la Trasparenza e i Diritti Umani Digitali dal 2011 ci interroghiamo sul funzionamento e sullo scopo delle innovazioni in campo tecnologico, analizzandole non solo da un punto di vista tecnico ma anche attraverso la lente dei diritti umani digitali. Negli ultimi anni la datificazione della società attraverso la raccolta indiscriminata di dati personali e l’estrazione di informazioni (e di valore) relative al comportamento e alle attività svolte da ognuno di noi sono il tema centrale di ricerca, analisi e advocacy dell’associazione. Siamo convinti infatti che vada messa in dubbio non solo la tecnologia digitale creata al presunto scopo di favorire il progresso o di dare una risposta oggettiva a fenomeni sociali complessi, ma anche il concetto di tecnologia come neutra e con pressoché simili ripercussioni su tutti gli individui della società. È importante a nostro parere che qualunque discorso sulla tecnologia racchiuda in sé una più ampia riflessione politica e sociologica, che cerchi di cogliere la differenza tra chi agisce la tecnologia e chi la subisce.

Principali risultati:

https://i.imgur.com/u6aDLCO.png https://i.imgur.com/feYAR79.png

▻https://protecht.hermescenter.org
#rapport #Hermes #frontières #Italie #reconnaissance_faciale #réfugiés #asile #migrations #contrôles_frontaliers #identification #financements_européens #technologie #complexe_militaro-industriel #Côme #surveillance #biométrie #données_biométriques #catégorisation #photos #empreintes_digitales #AFIS #algorythmes #Automated_Fingerprint_Identification_System #SARI_Real-Time #database #base_de_données

sur la mise en place de reconnaissance faciale à Côme:
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/859963

ping @etraces

Les grands événements, olympiades de la sécurité urbaine numérique ?
▻https://metropolitiques.eu/Les-grands-evenements-olympiades-de-la-securite-urbaine-numerique.ht

Les grands événements internationaux sont de plus en plus les lieux de déploiement des politiques et des technologies de sécurité numérique, allant de la reconnaissance faciale aux systèmes anti-drones. Myrtille Picaud montre comment la Coupe du monde masculine de rugby de 2023 et les JO de 2024 vont accélérer leur développement. Après avoir organisé l’Euro masculin de football en 2016, la France accueillera lors du prochain mandat présidentiel deux grands événements sportifs : la Coupe du monde #Terrains

/ #Jeux_olympiques, sécurité, #technologie, #sport

#sécurité
▻https://metropolitiques.eu/IMG/pdf/met_picaud.pdf

Tecnologie per il controllo delle frontiere in Italia. Identificazione, riconoscimento facciale e finanziamenti europei

https://i.imgur.com/IdjXwEC.png

#technologie #frontières #migrations #asile #réfugiés #contrôles_frontaliers #reconnaissance_faciale #identification #financements #complexe_militaro-industriel #SARI #SARI_Enterprise #SARI_Real-Time #biométrie #données_biométriques #base_de_données #AFIS #Italie #police #pré-identification #Procedure_Operative_Standard #hotspot #FOIA #Eurodac #Parsec_3.26 #CNR_ISASI #watch-list

ping @etraces

Des chercheurs israéliens contournent la reconnaissance faciale grâce à l’IA
▻https://fr.timesofisrael.com/des-chercheurs-israeliens-contournent-la-reconnaissance-faciale-gr

Des chercheurs israéliens ont trouvé une méthode apparemment simple pour tromper les logiciels de reconnaissance faciale – en appliquant du maquillage conventionnel sur des zones spécifiques du visage selon un modèle déterminé par un programme d’intelligence artificielle.

L’étude, menée à l’université Ben Gurion de Beer Sheva, a montré que, lorsque l’on applique le motif de maquillage généré par l’ordinateur sur les sujets testés, les systèmes sont contournés avec un taux de réussite proche de 100 %.

https://static.timesofisrael.com/fr/uploads/2021/10/FACIALIA-640x400.jpg

Vingt volontaires (10 hommes et 10 femmes) se sont vu appliquer du maquillage sur les zones du visage les plus identifiables selon la carte thermique générée par le logiciel, ou du maquillage aléatoire, et enfin pas de maquillage du tout.

Les sujets ont ensuite été confrontés à un environnement réel en marchant dans un couloir équipé de deux caméras et de diverses conditions d’éclairage.

Avec le modèle de maquillage conçu par le logiciel, les sujets n’ont été correctement identifiés que dans 1,22 % des cas, contre 33,73 % des cas avec un maquillage aléatoire et 47,57 % des cas sans aucun maquillage.

« J’ai été surpris par les résultats de cette étude », a déclaré Nitzan Guetta, l’un des principaux auteurs de l’étude, au site américain Motherboard.

https://static.timesofisrael.com/fr/uploads/2021/10/FACIALRECOGNITION.png

« [La maquilleuse] n’a pas fait trop d’astuces, elle a juste vu le modèle de maquillage de l’IA et a ensuite essayé de le copier. Ce n’est pas une copie parfaite. Il y a des différences, mais ça marche quand même », a-t-elle ajouté.

L’étude a été menée en utilisant des palettes de couleurs neutres pour obtenir un look naturel et des techniques de maquillage conventionnelles, ce qui signifie qu’elle peut techniquement être reproduite par n’importe qui. Cependant, l’inconvénient de la méthode est que l’on est toujours très reconnaissable par les autres humains.


https://static.timesofisrael.com/fr/uploads/2021/10/MANFACIALRECOGNITION.png

#IA #reconnaissance_faciale #biométrie #facial #surveillance #algorithme #reconnaissance #vidéo-surveillance #discrimination #smartphone #police #maquillage #surveillance #vidéo-surveillance #vidéosurveillance #caméras #reconnaissance

Rapport parlementaire : de nouveaux moyens de contrainte technologique
▻https://www.piecesetmaindoeuvre.com/spip.php?article1568

En juin 2021, le Sénat publiait un rapport légitimant la contrainte numérique durant les crises sanitaires (lire ici), où l’on pouvait notamment lire cette affirmation :

« Plus la menace sera grande, plus les sociétés seront prêtes à accepter des technologies intrusives, et des restrictions plus fortes à leurs libertés individuelles – et c’est logique. »

Confirmation en ce mois de septembre 2021 avec un autre rapport remis au Premier ministre, signé du député LREM de la Loire et ex-attaché parlementaire Jean-Michel Mis. Ce rapport est intitulé « Pour un usage responsable et acceptable par la société des technologies de sécurité ». La sécurité, comme la santé, étant « la première des libertés », selon la novlangue de l’ère cybernétique, on ne sera pas surpris du contenu de ce rapport. Il s’agit d’étendre les (...)

▻https://www.vie-publique.fr/sites/default/files/rapport/pdf/281424.pdf #Nécrotechnologies

Data et nouvelles technologies, la face cachée du contrôle des mobilités

https://i0.wp.com/asile.ch/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Capture-2.jpg?resize=334%2C323&ssl=1#.jpg

Dans un rapport de juillet 2020, l’#Agence_européenne_pour_la_gestion_opérationnelle_des_systèmes_d’information_à_grande_échelle (#EU-Lisa) présente l’#intelligence_artificielle (#IA) comme l’une des « #technologies prioritaires » à développer. Le rapport souligne les avantages de l’IA en matière migratoire et aux frontières, grâce, entre autres, à la technologie de #reconnaissance_faciale.

L’intelligence artificielle est de plus en plus privilégiée par les acteurs publics, les institutions de l’UE et les acteurs privés, mais aussi par le #HCR et l’#OIM. Les agences de l’UE, comme #Frontex ou EU-Lisa, ont été particulièrement actives dans l’expérimentation des nouvelles technologies, brouillant parfois la distinction entre essais et mise en oeuvre. En plus des outils traditionnels de #surveillance, une panoplie de technologies est désormais déployée aux frontières de l’Europe et au-delà, qu’il s’agisse de l’ajout de nouvelles #bases_de_données, de technologies financières innovantes, ou plus simplement de la récupération par les #GAFAM des données laissées volontairement ou pas par les migrant·e·s et réfugié∙e∙s durant le parcours migratoire.

La pandémie #Covid-19 est arrivée à point nommé pour dynamiser les orientations déjà prises, en permettant de tester ou de généraliser des technologies utilisées pour le contrôle des mobilités sans que l’ensemble des droits des exilé·e·s ne soit pris en considération. L’OIM, par exemple, a mis à disposition des Etats sa #Matrice_de_suivi_des_déplacements (#DTM) durant cette période afin de contrôler les « flux migratoires ». De nouvelles technologies au service de vieilles obsessions…

▻http://migreurop.org/article3021.html

Pour télécharger la note :
migreurop.org/IMG/pdf/note_12_fr.pdf

#migrations #réfugiés #asile #frontières #mobilité #mobilités #données #technologie #nouvelles_technologies #coronavirus #covid #IOM
#migreurop

ping @etraces

voir aussi :
Migreurop | Data : la face cachée du contrôle des mobilités
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/900232

La Relève et La Peste
▻https://lareleveetlapeste.fr/la-france-teste-officiellement-la-reconnaissance-faciale-dans-les-

https://lareleveetlapeste.fr/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/image-fb.jpg

La surveillance algorithmique avance à pas de colombe. Lundi 19 juillet, le conseil régional d’Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes a adopté un plan de sécurité prévoyant de mettre en place, « à titre expérimental, un premier dispositif de reconnaissance faciale » dans les gares et les trains régionaux. Une logique sécuritaire assumée.

Mais le combat est loin d’être gagné, nuance Martin Drago. « La tension médiatique se concentre sur la reconnaissance faciale ; pourtant c’est l’arbre qui cache la forêt, celle de la surveillance biométrique. » Analyse de démarche, de comportements dans la foule, détection d’émotions, suivi de silhouettes ou d’individus, captations sonores : tout cela constitue aussi de la surveillance de l’espace public par algorithmes.

Selon le juriste de la Quadrature du Net, d’autres types de technologies sont déployées dans la plus grande opacité : à Valenciennes, dans les couloirs du métro parisien, à Marseille, à Cannes, à Saint-Étienne, peut-être à Toulouse.

« Ces techniques reposent sur l’analyse de comportements par algorithmes, mais on ne sait pas ce dont il est vraiment question, car parfois, on ne l’apprend que quand l’expérimentation est passée. Or, du moment que l’on utilise notre corps pour nous marquer au sein d’une foule, c’est le même danger. »

#Vidéosurveillance #Reconnaissance_faciale #surveillance #Technopolice

The new lawsuit that shows facial recognition is officially a civil rights issue | MIT Technology Review
▻https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/04/14/1022676/robert-williams-facial-recognition-lawsuit-aclu-detroit-police/?truid=a497ecb44646822921c70e7e051f7f1a

https://wp.technologyreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Robert_Williams_11.jpg?resize=1200,600

Robert Williams, who was wrongfully arrested because of a faulty facial recognition match, is asking for the technology to be banned.

The news: On January 9, 2020, Detroit Police wrongfully arrested a Black man named Robert Williams due to a bad match from their department’s facial recognition system. Two more instances of false arrests have since been made public. Both are also Black men, and both have taken legal action to try rectifying the situation. Now Williams is following in their path and going further—not only by suing the Detroit Police for his wrongful arrest, but by trying to get the technology banned.

The details: On Tuesday, the ACLU and the University of Michigan Law School’s Civil Rights Litigation Initiative filed a lawsuit on behalf of Williams, alleging that his arrest violated Williams’s Fourth Amendment rights and was in defiance of Michigan’s civil rights law. The suit requests compensation, greater transparency about the use of facial recognition, and that the Detroit Police Department stop using all facial recognition technology, either directly or indirectly.

The significance: Racism within American law enforcement makes the use of facial recognition, which has been proven to misidentify Black people at much higher rates, even more concerning.

#Reconnaissance_faciale #Racisme #Droits_humains #Intelligence_artificielle

Humanoid facial recognition arrives at German police

https://digit.site36.net/files/2021/03/Eoex1_iWEAUyAaq-scaled-e1615023602175-1024x584.jpeg

When pursuing suspected criminals, some state police forces use a special ability of individual officers. Deployments often take place in major events

Police forces are increasingly using so-called #super-recognisers. These are people who are particularly good at remembering faces. An estimated one to two percent of all people are said to have this ability, as discovered by British scientist Josh Davis during a study within the Metropolitan Police. There, it was noticed that the same officers were always able to identify a particularly large number of suspects on video footage.

The researcher then helped the police in #Munich to set up the first such unit in Germany; in 2018, 13 policewomen and 14 policemen were selected for this after a multi-stage selection process. One of their first assignments was in the access control area and at the „video workstation“ of the #Oktoberfest, which took place in the same year; the comparison was made with images of people who had been denied entry, among other things. Allegedly, in Bavaria they have now helped to solve hundreds of cases.

Even before the official start of the unit, six Bavarian super-recognisers supported the special commission „#Black_Block“ set up in Hamburg after the #G20 summit. The officers searched image material for suspected criminals. Also in London, the super-recognisers were first deployed in 2011 at the G20 summit. One of them is said to have identified 180 suspects from video recordings, whereas a software with facial recognition, which was also used, identified only one person.

Humanoid facial recognition is also supposed to be possible if the picture of the wanted person is an old mugshot or if the person has changed their appearance with a cap, beard, sunglasses or paint. The Bavarian police claim to have successfully demonstrated this when handling environmental protests against the further construction of the #A49 in #Dannenröder_Forst. There, five of their super-recognisers were deployed at the request of the Hessian police. They trained 45 Frankfurt officers who are now also to be deployed for super-recognition. However, there are no plans to set up a separate unit in #Hesse.

▻https://digit.site36.net/2021/03/06/humanoid-facial-recognition-arrives-at-german-police
#reconnaissance_faciale #police #Allemagne #surveillance #surveillance_policière #humanoïdes #Bavière

ping @davduf @etraces

« L’Etat de droit mute doucement vers une forme ultra-sécuritaire » , Asma Mhalla, le 06 novembre 2018
▻https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2018/11/06/l-etat-de-droit-mute-doucement-vers-une-forme-ultra-securitaire_5379355_3232

Spécialiste des enjeux de l’économie numérique, Asma Mhalla montre, dans une tribune au « Monde », le glissement progressif d’un Etat de droit à un Etat de surveillance attentatoire aux droits des citoyens.

(Quelqu’un.e traverse le wall, s’il vous plait ?)

Smile for the camera: the dark side of China’s emotion-recognition tech | China | The Guardian
▻http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/mar/03/china-positive-energy-emotion-surveillance-recognition-tech

Ordinary people here in China aren’t happy about this technology but they have no choice. If the police say there have to be cameras in a community, people will just have to live with it. There’s always that demand and we’re here to fulfil it.”

So says Chen Wei at Taigusys, a company specialising in emotion recognition technology, the latest evolution in the broader world of surveillance systems that play a part in nearly every aspect of Chinese society.

Emotion-recognition technologies – in which facial expressions of anger, sadness, happiness and boredom, as well as other biometric data are tracked – are supposedly able to infer a person’s feelings based on traits such as facial muscle movements, vocal tone, body movements and other biometric signals. It goes beyond facial-recognition technologies, which simply compare faces to determine a match.

#reconnaissance_faciale #chine

Comment le #maquillage peut nous protéger de la #reconnaissance_faciale ?
▻https://www.ladn.eu/mondes-creatifs/maquillage-camouflage-devient-une-arme-anti-surveillance

Dans les rues de Londres, le collectif anti-surveillance The Dazzle Club milite silencieusement et à couvert. Son arme de prédilection ? Le maquillage asymétrique pour tromper les dispositifs biométriques de reconnaissance faciale. Trois de ses fondatrices, Emily Roderick, Georgina Rowlands et Anna Hart, nous racontent.

Août 2019. Le quartier de King’s Cross à Londres prévoit de déployer un système de #caméras de #surveillance utilisant la reconnaissance faciale sans consulter les #habitants. Les masques ne font pas encore partie de leur quotidien, mais le #collectif d’artistes The #Dazzle_Club s’interroge : « peut-on encore être libres dans l’espace public ? »

Affublées de maquillages mystérieusement graphiques, Emily Roderick, Georgina Rowlands, Anna Hart et Evie Price se mettent alors à marcher, en silence, dans les rues de la capitale. Derrière la performance artistique se cache une véritable technique de camouflage, CV Dazzle, développée en 2010 par le chercheur Adam Harvey. Le but ? Protéger nos visages des algorithmes de reconnaissance faciale.

This is how we lost control of our faces | MIT Technology Review
▻https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/02/05/1017388/ai-deep-learning-facial-recognition-data-history

https://wp.technologyreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/GettyImages-672156981-crop.jpeg?resize=1200,600

The largest ever study of facial-recognition data shows how much the rise of deep learning has fueled a loss of privacy.
by

Karen Hao
February 5, 2021

In 1964, mathematician and computer scientist Woodrow Bledsoe first attempted the task of matching suspects’ faces to mugshots. He measured out the distances between different facial features in printed photographs and fed them into a computer program. His rudimentary successes would set off decades of research into teaching machines to recognize human faces.

Now a new study shows just how much this enterprise has eroded our privacy. It hasn’t just fueled an increasingly powerful tool of surveillance. The latest generation of deep-learning-based facial recognition has completely disrupted our norms of consent.

People were extremely cautious about collecting, documenting, and verifying face data in the early days, says Raji. “Now we don’t care anymore. All of that has been abandoned,” she says. “You just can’t keep track of a million faces. After a certain point, you can’t even pretend that you have control.”

A history of facial-recognition data

The researchers identified four major eras of facial recognition, each driven by an increasing desire to improve the technology. The first phase, which ran until the 1990s, was largely characterized by manually intensive and computationally slow methods.

But then, spurred by the realization that facial recognition could track and identify individuals more effectively than fingerprints, the US Department of Defense pumped $6.5 million into creating the first large-scale face data set. Over 15 photography sessions in three years, the project captured 14,126 images of 1,199 individuals. The Face Recognition Technology (FERET) database was released in 1996.

The following decade saw an uptick in academic and commercial facial-recognition research, and many more data sets were created. The vast majority were sourced through photo shoots like FERET’s and had full participant consent. Many also included meticulous metadata, Raji says, such as the age and ethnicity of subjects, or illumination information. But these early systems struggled in real-world settings, which drove researchers to seek larger and more diverse data sets.

In 2007, the release of the Labeled Faces in the Wild (LFW) data set opened the floodgates to data collection through web search. Researchers began downloading images directly from Google, Flickr, and Yahoo without concern for consent. LFW also relaxed standards around the inclusion of minors, using photos found with search terms like “baby,” “juvenile,” and “teen” to increase diversity. This process made it possible to create significantly larger data sets in a short time, but facial recognition still faced many of the same challenges as before. This pushed researchers to seek yet more methods and data to overcome the technology’s poor performance.

Then, in 2014, Facebook used its user photos to train a deep-learning model called DeepFace. While the company never released the data set, the system’s superhuman performance elevated deep learning to the de facto method for analyzing faces. This is when manual verification and labeling became nearly impossible as data sets grew to tens of millions of photos, says Raji. It’s also when really strange phenomena start appearing, like auto-generated labels that include offensive terminology.

Image-generation algorithms are regurgitating the same sexist, racist ideas that exist on the internet.

The way the data sets were used began to change around this time, too. Instead of trying to match individuals, new models began focusing more on classification. “Instead of saying, ‘Is this a photo of Karen? Yes or no,’ it turned into ‘Let’s predict Karen’s internal personality, or her ethnicity,’ and boxing people into these categories,” Raji says.

Amba Kak, the global policy director at AI Now, who did not participate in the research, says the paper offers a stark picture of how the biometrics industry has evolved. Deep learning may have rescued the technology from some of its struggles, but “that technological advance also has come at a cost,” she says. “It’s thrown up all these issues that we now are quite familiar with: consent, extraction, IP issues, privacy.”

Raji says her investigation into the data has made her gravely concerned about deep-learning-based facial recognition.

“It’s so much more dangerous,” she says. “The data requirement forces you to collect incredibly sensitive information about, at minimum, tens of thousands of people. It forces you to violate their privacy. That in itself is a basis of harm. And then we’re hoarding all this information that you can’t control to build something that likely will function in ways you can’t even predict. That’s really the nature of where we’re at.”

#Reconnaissance_faciale #éthique #Histoire_numérique #Surveillance

How the Pandemic Turned Refugees Into ‘Guinea Pigs’ for Surveillance Tech

An interview with Dr. Petra Molnar, who spent 2020 investigating the use of drones, facial recognition, and lidar on refugees

The coronavirus pandemic unleashed a new era in surveillance technology, and arguably no group has felt this more acutely than refugees. Even before the pandemic, refugees were subjected to contact tracing, drone and LIDAR tracking, and facial recognition en masse. Since the pandemic, it’s only gotten worse. For a microcosm of how bad the pandemic has been for refugees — both in terms of civil liberties and suffering under the virus — look no further than Greece.

Greek refugee camps are among the largest in Europe, and they are overpopulated, with scarce access to water, food, and basic necessities, and under constant surveillance. Researchers say that many of the surveillance techniques and technologies — especially experimental, rudimentary, and low-cost ones — used to corral refugees around the world were often tested in these camps first.

“Certain communities already marginalized, disenfranchised are being used as guinea pigs, but the concern is that all of these technologies will be rolled out against the broader population and normalized,” says Petra Molnar, Associate Director of the Refugee Law Lab, York University.

Molnar traveled to the Greek refugee camps on Lesbos in 2020 as part of a fact-finding project with the advocacy group European Digital Rights (EDRi). She arrived right after the Moria camp — the largest in Europe at the time — burned down and forced the relocation of thousands of refugees. Since her visit, she has been concerned about the rise of authoritarian technology and how it might be used against the powerless.

With the pandemic still raging and states more desperate than ever to contain it, it seemed a good time to discuss the uses and implications of surveillance in the refugee camps. Molnar, who is still in Greece and plans to continue visiting the camps once the nation’s second lockdown lifts, spoke to OneZero about the kinds of surveillance technology she saw deployed there, and what the future holds — particularly with the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, Molnar says, adding “that they’ve been using Greece as a testing ground for all sorts of aerial surveillance technology.”

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

OneZero: What kinds of surveillance practices and technologies did you see in the camps?

Petra Molnar: I went to Lesbos in September, right after the Moria camp burned down and thousands of people were displaced and sent to a new camp. We were essentially witnessing the birth of the Kara Tepes camp, a new containment center, and talked to the people about surveillance, and also how this particular tragedy was being used as a new excuse to bring more technology, more surveillance. The [Greek] government is… basically weaponizing Covid to use it as an excuse to lock the camps down and make it impossible to do any research.

When you are in Lesbos, it is very clear that it is a testing ground, in the sense that the use of tech is quite rudimentary — we are not talking about thermal cameras, iris scans, anything like that, but there’s an increase in the appetite of the Greek government to explore the use of it, particularly when they try to control large groups of people and also large groups coming from the Aegean. It’s very early days for a lot of these technologies, but everything points to the fact that Greece is Europe’s testing ground.

They are talking about bringing biometric control to the camps, but we know for example that the Hellenic Coast Guard has a drone that they have been using for self-promotion, propaganda, and they’ve now been using it to follow specific people as they are leaving and entering the camp. I’m not sure if the use of drones was restricted to following refugees once they left the camps, but with the lockdown, it was impossible to verify. [OneZero had access to a local source who confirmed that drones are also being used inside the camps to monitor refugees during lockdown.]

Also, people can come and go to buy things at stores, but they have to sign in and out at the gate, and we don’t know how they are going to use such data and for what purposes.

Surveillance has been used on refugees long before the pandemic — in what ways have refugees been treated as guinea pigs for the policies and technologies we’re seeing deployed more widely now? And what are some of the worst examples of authoritarian technologies being deployed against refugees in Europe?

The most egregious examples that we’ve been seeing are that ill-fated pilot projects — A.I. lie detectors and risk scorings which were essentially trying to use facial recognition and facial expressions’ micro-targeting to determine whether a person was more likely than others to lie at the border. Luckily, that technology was debunked and also generated a lot of debate around the ethics and human rights implications of using something like that.

Technologies such as voice printing have been used in Germany to try to track a person’s country of origin or their ethnicity, facial recognition made its way into the new Migration’s Pact, and Greece is thinking about automating the triage of refugees, so there’s an appetite at the EU level and globally to use this tech. I think 2021 will be very interesting as more resources are being diverted to these types of tech.

We saw, right when the pandemic started, that migration data used for population modeling became kind of co-opted and used to try and model flows of Covid. And this is very problematic because they are assuming that the mobile population, people on the move, and refugees are more likely to be bringing in Covid and diseases — but the numbers don’t bear out. We are also seeing the gathering of vast amounts of data for all these databases that Europe is using or will be using for a variety of border enforcement and policing in general.

The concern is that fear’s being weaponized around the pandemic and technologies such as mobile tracking and data collection are being used as ways to control people. It is also broader, it deals with a kind of discourse around migration, on limiting people’s rights to move. Our concern is that it’ll open the door to further, broader rollout of this kind of tech against the general population.

What are some of the most invasive technologies you’ve seen? And are you worried these authoritarian technologies will continue to expand, and not just in refugee camps?

In Greece, the most invasive technologies being used now would probably be drones and unpiloted surveillance technologies, because it’s a really easy way to dehumanize that kind of area where people are crossing, coming from Turkey, trying to claim asylum. There’s also the appetite to try facial recognition technology.

It shows just how dangerous these technologies can be both because they facilitate pushbacks, border enforcement, and throwing people away, and it really plays into this kind of idea of instead of humane responses you’d hope to happen when you see a boat in distress in the Aegean or the Mediterranean, now entities are turning towards drones and the whole kind of surveillance apparatus. It highlights how the humanity in this process has been lost.

And the normalization of it all. Now it is so normal to use drones — everything is about policing Europe’s shore, Greece being a shield, to normalize the use of invasive surveillance tech. A lot of us are worried with talks of expanding the scope of action, mandate, and powers of Frontex [the European Border and Coast Guard Agency] and its utter lack of accountability — it is crystal clear that entities like Frontex are going to do Europe’s dirty work.

There’s a particular framing applied when governments and companies talk about migrants and refugees, often linking them to ISIS and using careless terms and phrases to discuss serious issues. Our concern is that this kind of use of technology is going to become more advanced and more efficient.

What is happening with regard to contact tracing apps — have there been cases where the technology was forced on refugees?

I’ve heard about the possibility of refugees being tracked through their phones, but I couldn’t confirm. I prefer not to interact with the state through my phone, but that’s a privilege I have, a choice I can make. If you’re living in a refugee camp your options are much more constrained. Often people in the camps feel they are compelled to give access to their phones, to give their phone numbers, etc. And then there are concerns that tracking is being done. It’s really hard to track the tracking; it is not clear what’s being done.

Aside from contact tracing, there’s the concern with the Wi-Fi connection provided in the camps. There’s often just one connection or one specific place where Wi-Fi works and people need to be connected to their families, spouses, friends, or get access to information through their phones, sometimes their only lifeline. It’s a difficult situation because, on the one hand, people are worried about privacy and surveillance, but on the other, you want to call your family, your spouse, and you can only do that through Wi-Fi and people feel they need to be connected. They have to rely on what’s available, but there’s a concern that because it’s provided by the authorities, no one knows exactly what’s being collected and how they are being watched and surveilled.

How do we fight this surveillance creep?

That’s the hard question. I think one of the ways that we can fight some of this is knowledge. Knowing what is happening, sharing resources among different communities, having a broader understanding of the systemic way this is playing out, and using such knowledge generated by the community itself to push for regulation and governance when it comes to these particular uses of technologies.

We call for a moratorium or abolition of all high-risk technology in and around the border because right now we don’t have a governance mechanism in place or integrated regional or international way to regulate these uses of tech.

Meanwhile, we have in the EU a General Data Protection Law, a very strong tool to protect data and data sharing, but it doesn’t really touch on surveillance, automation, A.I., so the law is really far behind.

One of the ways to fight A.I. is to make policymakers understand the real harm that these technologies have. We are talking about ways that discrimination and inequality are reinforced by this kind of tech, and how damaging they are to people.

We are trying to highlight this systemic approach to see it as an interconnected system in which all of these technologies play a part in this increasingly draconian way that migration management is being done.

▻https://onezero.medium.com/how-the-pandemic-turned-refugees-into-guinea-pigs-for-surveillance-t

#réfugiés #cobaye #surveillance #technologie #pandémie #covid-19 #coroanvirus #LIDAR #drones #reconnaissance_faciale #Grèce #camps_de_réfugiés #Lesbos #Moria #European_Digital_Rights (#EDRi) #surveillance_aérienne #complexe_militaro-industriel #Kara_Tepes #weaponization #biométrie #IA #intelligence_artificielle #détecteurs_de_mensonges #empreinte_vocale #tri #catégorisation #donneés #base_de_données #contrôle #technologies_autoritaires #déshumanisation #normalisation #Frontex #wifi #internet #smartphone #frontières

ping @isskein @karine4

ping @etraces

Artificial intelligence : #Frontex improves its maritime surveillance

https://digit.site36.net/files/2021/01/Frontex-detects-mother-boat-smuggling-people-1024x576.jpeg

Frontex wants to use a new platform to automatically detect and assess „risks“ on the seas of the European Union. Suspected irregular activities are to be displayed in a constantly updated „threat map“ with the help of self-learning software.

The EU border agency has renewed a contract with Israeli company Windward for a „maritime analytics“ platform. It will put the application into regular operation. Frontex had initially procured a licence for around 800,000 Euros. For now 2.6 million Euros, the agency will receive access for four workstations. The contract can be extended three times for one year at a time.

Windward specialises in the digital aggregation and assessment of vessel tracking and maritime surveillance data. Investors in the company, which was founded in 2011, include former US CIA director David Petraeus and former CEO’s of Thomson Reuters and British Petroleum. The former chief of staff of the Israeli military, Gabi Ashkenazi, is considered one of the advisors.

Signature for each observed ship

The platform is based on artificial intelligence techniques. For analysis, it uses maritime reporting systems, including position data from the AIS transponders of larger ships and weather data. These are enriched with information about the ship owners and shipping companies as well as the history of previous ship movements. For this purpose, the software queries openly accessible information from the internet.

In this way, a „fingerprint“ is created for each observed ship, which can be used to identify suspicious activities. If the captain switches off the transponder, for example, the analysis platform can recognise this as a suspicuous event and take over further tracking based on the recorded patterns. It is also possible to integrate satellite images.

Windward uses the register of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) as its database, which lists about 70,000 ships. Allegedly, however, it also processes data on a total of 400,000 watercraft, including smaller fishing boats. One of the clients is therefore the UN Security Council, which uses the technology to monitor sanctions.

Against „bad guys“ at sea

The company advertises its applications with the slogan „Catch the bad guys at sea“. At Frontex, the application is used to combat and prevent unwanted migration and cross-border crime as well as terrorism. Subsequently, „policy makers“ and law enforcement agencies are to be informed about results. For this purpose, the „risks“ found are visualised in a „threat map“.

Windward put such a „threat map“ online two years ago. At the time, the software rated the Black Sea as significantly more risky than the Mediterranean. Commercial shipping activity off the Crimea was interpreted as „probable sanction evasions“. Ship owners from the British Guernsey Islands as well as Romania recorded the highest proportion of ships exhibiting „risky“ behaviour. 42 vessels were classified as suspicious for drug smuggling based on their patterns.

Frontex „early warning“ units

The information from maritime surveillance is likely to be processed first by the „Risk Analysis Unit“ (RAU) at Frontex. It is supposed to support strategic decisions taken by the headquarters in Warsaw on issues of border control, return, prevention of cross-border crime as well as threats of a „hybrid nature“. Frontex calls the applications used there „intelligence products“ and „integrated data services“. Their results flow together in the „Common Integrated Risk Analysis Model“ (CIRAM).

For the operational monitoring of the situation at the EU’s external borders, the agency also maintains the „Frontex Situation Centre“ (FSC). The department is supposed to provide a constantly updated picture of migration movements, if possible in real time. From these reports, Frontex produces „early warnings“ and situation reports to the border authorities of the member states as well as to the Commission and the Council in Brussels.

More surveillance capacity in Warsaw

According to its own information, Windward’s clients include the Italian Guardia di Finanza, which is responsible for controlling Italian territorial waters. The Ministry of the Interior in Rome is also responsible for numerous EU projects aimed at improving surveillance of the central Mediterranean. For the training and equipment of the Libyan coast guard, Italy receives around 67 million euros from EU funds in three different projects. Italian coast guard authorities are also installing a surveillance system for Tunisia’s external maritime borders.

Frontex now wants to improve its own surveillance capacities with further tenders. Together with the fisheries agency, The agency is awarding further contracts for manned maritime surveillance. It has been operating such a „Frontex Aerial Surveillance Service“ (FASS) in the central Mediterranean since 2017 and in the Adriatic Sea since 2018. Frontex also wants to station large drones in the Mediterranean. Furthermore, it is testing Aerostats in the eastern Mediterranean for a second time. These are zeppelins attached to a 1,000-metre long line.

▻https://digit.site36.net/2021/01/15/artificial-intelligence-frontex-improves-its-maritime-surveillance
#intelligence_artificielle #surveillance #surveillance_maritime #mer #asile #migrations #réfugiés #frontières #AI #Windward #Israël #complexe_militaro-industriel #militarisation_des_frontières #David_Petraeus #Thomson_Reuters #British_Petroleum #armée_israélienne #Gabi_Ashkenazi #International_Maritime_Organisation (#IMO) #thread_map #Risk_Analysis_Unit (#RAU) #Common_Integrated_Risk_Analysis_Model (#CIRAM) #Frontex_Situation_Centre (#FSC) #Frontex_Aerial_Surveillance_Service (#FASS) #zeppelins

ping @etraces

Flawed Facial Recognition Leads To Arrest and Jail for New Jersey Man - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/29/technology/facial-recognition-misidentify-jail.html

A New Jersey man was accused of shoplifting and trying to hit an officer with a car. He is the third known Black man to be wrongfully arrested based on face recognition.

#reconnaissance_faciale #police #justice #racisme