2023-09-26 07:55:43
On June 14, the European Parliament approved its position on the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Law, a regulation pioneer in the world that will prohibit the uses of this technology that pose a high risk. It is the case of the biometric surveillance or the call predictive policingtwo of the many systems that the company itself European Union (EU) has been deploying in its borders throughout the last decade to try to stop, without success, migratory flows towards the old continent.
However, the text is not closed and its final version could pose an even greater threat to people. migrants. This is stated by more than a hundred NGOs who have denounced the pressure exercised by some Member States – which are negotiating the final draft with the European Commission – to modify the law, limit its capabilities and thus maintain the apparatus built in the south of the continent.
“We are at a crucial moment because the interests of the States can overcome those of the European Parliament and that could leave migrants unprotected,” he denounces. Caterina Rodellianalyst for the non-profit organization Access Now in a telephone conversation with EL PERIÓDICO, from the Prensa Ibérica group.
We are at a crucial moment. If the interests of States prevail, migrants could be left unprotected.
Technology on the border
The EU is committed to digitalizing its borders. Between 2014 and 2022, Brussels has invested more than 250 million euros in the deployment of automated doors, lie detectors for border crossings or swarms of surveillance drones. It has also helped finance the chambers of facial recognition that Spain has deployed in Ceuta or a controversial system for predicting migratory flows using IA developed in Catalonia. And even the SBMS, a biometric detection system that will collect fingerprints and facial images of more than 400 million third-country citizens.
The budget of the UE in security it will go further. It is expected that, between 2023 and 2027, the amount will increase by 123%, reaching 43.9 billion euros. The most beneficiaries of this policy are private companies in the military and security field, such as Indra. Border management “has become a full-fledged business sponsored by the European taxpayer,” according to Eva Baluganti, an expert from the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network.
Opacity and a “legal loophole”
The NGOs denounce that the European Council — who represents the 27 members of the community club — maneuvers so that the final text does not include these systems, “promoting the false narrative that the police you need them to reduce the migration or better detect criminals,” says Rodelli.
Activists warn that States also intend to exempt border authorities from complying with the obligations of transparency. “If this continues we will not know what systems they use and how they harm people,” adds the Access Now expert. “Impunity is being allowed.” The current opacity, they say, prevents them from knowing which States and which companies are pressuring the European Council to modify the text.
If some changes are adopted, the law will become useless and will allow impunity for the States.
The new European law categorizes IA according to your risk and the higher it is, the more restrictions its use will have. However, the text includes in Article 6 a “legal loophole” that will allow developers to be the ones to decide if their systems are dangerous. “If this is approved, the law will become useless, because no company will sell its product saying that it carries risks,” Rodelli laments.
Discrimination at borders
This business has been outsourced in the region of Near East and North Africa as a “testing ground.” The EU has used billions of euros of development funds to finance projects that equip police forces and migration agencies in countries such as Algeria, Egypt, Libya y Tunisia with more powerful technologies to, a priori, stop human trafficking. “Brussels does not care if these are undemocratic or authoritarian governments,” considers Rodelli.
The use of AI at borders could be counterproductive. A recent report by the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network points out that it “actively contributes to the instability” of African countries, as well as “discriminatory border procedures, threatening the right of asylum, the right to leave one’s country, the principle of non-refoulement, as well as the rights to privacy and freedom.”
The oenégés network BVMN has detected that at least 15 countries, 10 of them members of the EU, would have used “new technologies” to “perpetrate incidents of forced disappearances at the external borders and to persecute human rights defenders who are dedicated to monitoring these crimes.”
More dead
He also adds that the EU’s growing investment in military technology “does not stop migration, it only makes it more dangerous and lethal.” In the first four months of 2023 up to 441 people have died trying to reach the continent through the Central Mediterranean, the highest figure since 2017, according to data from the International Organization for Migration. The number of victims since 2014 amounts to more than 24,000.
The AI Law is one of the top priorities of the Government of Spain, who heads the rotating presidency of the EU. His objective is for the negotiations to conclude by the end of the year in order to close an agreement before his term ends. However, the “great distance” between the positions of Parliament and the Council suggests that it could go for a long time. The balance has not yet been tipped.
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