Latin America: Surveillance and Human Rights in the Digital Age

               Violation of privacy is a very serious human rights violation. We can not tolerate this abuse. Record any evidence of privacy violation and help to do justice.  This post is a summary of two articles. The first with the title above was published at  https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/latamcaribbean/2015/04/09/latin-america-surveillance-and-human-rights-in-the-digital-age/. The second was published at https://botpopuli.net/south-americas-and-the-surveillance-society

                In July 2014, the Uruguayan government secretly purchased the license for a piece of software to monitor citizen communications, "The Guardian" (as the Brazilian tool is known) is now being fully deployed with no clear guidelines. Civil society organisations fiercely opposed this development and are now starting a legal procedure to access information about the purchase.  This is just one of many examples of surveillance technology being used in Latin America: Latin America democracies might be becoming increasingly established, but the intelligence and security agencies have not adjusted to a new democratic era. Regulation of these agencies is still problematic and poorly discussed. Furthermore, governments are discussing cyber-security issues in international forums with little consideration of human rights issues. The secrecy and lack of regulation around surveillance technology poses a key question: how should we address the protection of human rights in an age of technological disruption in Latin America? When it comes to surveillance, Latin America governments have different capacities and not all fully respect the rule of law. Yet a clear trends are emerging: there is a small group of civil society advocates aware of these issues, technology used for surveillance is increasing and there is a new global scenario in place. Civil society groups have documented worrying practices by governments in the region. In Colombia, security forces spied on activists, journalists and members of the parliament using traditional and new technologies. In Argentina, a new bio-metric system has created the potential to gather key data about the Argentinean population that can be accessed by security forces without clear restraints. In Mexico, a new telecommunication law allows access to personal data (including mobile phone geo-location data in real time) to security agencies without a warrant. In Brazil, "Guardian" is being used to monitor protests. In Paraguay, civil society advocates successfully opposed a new telecommunication law that would allow government to store significant data on users. The list keeps getting longer. Surveillance tech also include drones, CCTV, facial recognition software, body scanners, and identification registry systems. Despite these practices, several Latin Americam governments, led by Brazil, promoted a joint declaration about the right to privacy in the digital age. In doing so, the regoin is not "walking the talk" that it promotes in global forums. A human rights framework needs to be developed and shared among stakeholders to answer crucial questions about the governance of surveillance technologies in Latin American democracies. In a post-Snowden world, the surveillance debate is linked with other Internet-associated issues such as net neutrality, copyright reform, and freedom of expression. There are at least three areas where Latin America needs a new and improved approach, advocating human rights-based policies: a) Governance of surveillance technologies:  In particular, transparency about technology purchases, operations protocols, reach and usage should be clearly established. Judiciary and human rights groups should ensure adequate oversight. This demands capacity building in civil society and accountable institutions, public leaders and security forces. b) Re-assessing normative frameworks for freedom of association, communication and speech in the digital age: Laws such as Marco Civil in Brazil offer an example of how national telecommunication infrastructures can play a role in securing certain guarantees in the digital age. All regulation should target criminal activity without targeting lawful exercise of freedom of speech online. c) Strengthening privacy and data protection. Not all Latin American countries have strong data protection and privacy law. In light of recent developments in terms of the role the private sector is playing in surveillance and other areas such as health-care, new regulation is needed. Citizens should know who has data about them, who is using it, and for what purpose.Timing is crucial here. If no action is taken, Latin American countries might well engage in building their surveillance apparatus unchecked. On the other hand, if appropriate action is taken, Latin America might well develop a progressive path. The path ahead can still be shaped to guarantee human rights in the digital age.

                    We live in times when algorithms facilitate electoral fraud, track people's moviment and can analyze micro-expressions to anticipate criminal behavior. This article examines the introdution of transnational technologies in the South American context, and how they are raising human rights and privacy concerns. In 2019, the Argentine computing specialist, Ariel Garbarz, shared with the puplic prosecutor's office of Argentine his concern about the possibility of electoral fraud in the upcoming Argentinian elections. Garbarz also denounced the infalibility of Election-360, an election management software, acquired from the transnational company Smartmatic. Election-360 has been in the news for fraud in several countries. Built on proprietary software with codes that are closed, it is not amenable to audit by computer inspectors assigned to monitor elections. There are many doubts generated by Smartmatic's eletronic voting system regarding the violation of secrecy and possible rigging of results. Surveillance cameras are increasingly in use by security forces in various countries, including South America. But the images captured from these surveillance cameras are analyzed by tech companies working on A.I. applications. While official narratives assert that the use of these applications is restricted to crime detection, it is not a transparent process, and can easily impinge on citizens rights. Both Chile and Argentina are advancing the implementation of A.I. facial recognition systems, supposedly to detect people who are on wanted lists. But this technology has the potential to jeopardize the privacy of millions of innocent citizens. Previously, Argentina had also announced the purchase of aerostatic surveillance ballons with cameras capable of recording a 360 degrees view, equipped with day and night vision, to identify and track targets for kilometers. As with Election 360, these surveillance processes are not open to public scrutiny. As governments increasingly adopt such surveillance tools, many questions arise. How are the images recorded in public or private spaces treated? Who utilizes these images? what are the custody and guardianship processes in place, and for how long is the data stored? The truth is that no protocol has been studied, and no debate about the protection of personal data has explicity addressed issues around the lack of transparency and accountability that accompany these processes. The analysis of images from CCTV cameras is only one of the many A.I. applications at play in the name of public safety. The US Department of Justice has funded a program at Cardiff University to develop a software for the analysis of social networks to detect where incidents of crime may occur. Fake news has spread rapidly through the internet, and particularly through social networks. To curb the spread of misinformation, large tech corporations such as Google anf Facebook, are seeking to impose their own standards of censorship. By using its algorithms to conceal certain media outlets, or censor, or certain photograps and videos, Google is able to manipulate its search engine results, essentially appropriating the internet and its information avenues. The lack of transparency, regulatory mechanisms and citizen and state oversight, makes it impossible for the public to assess the success of these methods, and hold these companies accountable. The data collected, supposedly in the service of security and the detection of crimes lead to the definitive loss of an individual privacy, as well as a threat to democratic processes.