Latest updates: all new material added to the site
Webinar: Data protection in immigration and asylum: Rights and opportunities for redress
Category: Events
Do you work with people in immigration or asylum proceedings? Do they face problems of secrecy and lack of access to information about their case? Would you like to know more about how data protection law can be used in migration and asylum cases? Join us for an online workshop on 6 November.
New externalisation bulletin: Sudan, North Africa, dozens of official documents
Category: News
The latest edition of the bulletin Outsourcing borders: Monitoring EU externalisation policy is now available, featuring analyses on the EU’s position with regard to refugees fleeing the war in Sudan, the EU’s ongoing support for authoritarian and violent regimes in North Africa, and the release of dozens of previously-unavailable official documents.
Egypt and Tunisia show 'little interest' in EU migration deal despite billions
Category: Press coverage
EUobserver, 14 October.
EU support for violent and authoritarian regimes: no end in sight
Category: Analysis
Migration across the Central Mediterranean has been a consistent topic in the EU for over a decade. In July, the Council’s Working Party on the External Aspects of Migration discussed a paper drafted by the Hungarian Council Presidency. Focusing on Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, it argues that challenges have “deepened and become more complex in 2023.” This includes dangers at sea and shortcomings in living conditions, infrastructure and humanitarian assistance on land. As is customary, there is little mention of the role played by EU migration policy in generating these “challenges”.
Ignoring the root causes of disaster: the EU and Sudan
Category: Analysis
In June, the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the EU circulated a paper on Sudan to the Working Party on External Aspects of Asylum and Migration (EMWP). The document offered an overview of the situation of war and displacement in this country, which has been ongoing since April 2023. It omits several issues that are crucial for a meaningful understanding of the situation.
EU und Kanada: Neues Abkommen zur Übermittlung von Fluggastdaten steht
Category: Press coverage
Heise, 4 October 2024.
European support for human rights violations in Tunisia "must end"
Category: News
"European policies to externalize border management to Tunisia are supporting security authorities who are committing serious violations" of human rights, says a joint statement signed by dozens of organisations from Europe, North Africa and beyond, including Statewatch. The statement calls on the EU and its member states to demand that Tunisian authorities respect human rights, end their crackdown on civil society organisations, ensure that people rescued at sea are not disembarked in Tunisia, and to end their financial and technical support to Tunisian security authorities.
EU: Hungarian Council presidency takes aim at refugees and asylum-seekers
Category: News
In a move that is unlikely to surprise anyone, the Hungarian Council Presidency has kicked off discussions on reviewing the status of international protection beneficiaries, and how member states deal with individuals whose asylum applications have been refused, but who cannot be deported.
Så gick Frontex från liten myndighet till högteknologisk propagandamaskin
Category: Press coverage
Dagens ETC, 3 October 2024.
EU: Definition of “potential terrorists” opens door to broad information-sharing
Category: News
EU member states can now collect and share information on “potential terrorists”. This category is based on a new informal definition that was agreed with no democratic scrutiny. While claiming to target those who may engage in political violence, there is potential for far broader application.
European data protection authorities urged to take action on new cybercrime convention
Category: News
A letter signed by Statewatch and a number of other organisations calls for the European Data Protection Board to issue an opinion on the new UN Convention on Cybercrime, due to the "serious risks" it poses to human rights. Those risks include provisions that would empower national authorities to obtain access to encrypted communications and force communications service providers to retain large amounts of user data.
Increased number of EU laws face scrutiny from internal security officials
Category: News
Security issues need to be considered in all EU policies, say draft "strategic guidelines in the field of Justice and Home Affairs" obtained by Statewatch. The guidelines will be adopted by the European Council to guide law and policy-making between 2024 and 2029. They also call for "adequate EU funds" to ensure implementation of the Pact on Migration and Asylum, the expansion and interconnection of policing and migration databases, and for other issues such as plans to increase deportations.
Call to suspend EU-Israel agreement over violations of Palestinian rights
Category: News
Statewatch is one of 160 organisations that are calling for the suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement due to ongoing human rights violations in Occupied Palestinian Territory. The Association Agreement is conditional upon "respect for human rights and democratic principles" by both the EU and Israel, says a statement published today by the organisations. It calls for suspension of the Agreement "until the EU is confident that nothing in its relations with Israel contributes in any way - political, financial, military, technical, trade, anything - to the continuation of the occupation and of the denial of the rights of the Palestinian people."
German police recommend “intensive” social media investigations into visa applicants
Category: News
In a document obtained by Statewatch, the German police call for “intensive use” of open source research on visa applicants. The document, a handbook on Schengen visa fraud, also recommends developing “risk profiles”. This would use criteria such as “gender, age, groups of persons, origin, itinerary” to assess applicants’ risk of committing visa fraud.
Annual activity report 2023
Category: Publications and reports
Civil liberties in an era of crisis and turmoil
Hundreds of groups call on EU to uphold civic space, rights and democracy
Category: News
An open letter signed by more than 400 organisations from across Europe, including Statewatch, calls on the EU institutions to "prioritise actions that foster a vibrant civic space, uphold democracy, and safeguard fundamental rights" over the next five years. At a time of constant attacks upon rights and freedoms - which the letter notes "threaten the very foundation of democracy" - the signatories call on the EU needs to take meaningful steps to address the problems. These include the adoption of a European Civil Society Strategy, appointing a Commission vice-president for "democracy, civic space and dialogue with civil society," and ensuring "permanent, structured, and meaningful interaction between institutions and organised civil society."
How should Europe deal with its migration crisis?
Category: Press coverage
Al Jazeera's Inside Story, 16 September 2024.
Frontex flights and fatalities in the Channel
Category: News
Following the Channel shipwreck in November 2021, when at least 31 people drowned while French and British coastguards ignored their calls for help and failed to coordinate a search and rescue operation, European ministers met in Calais for crisis talks. Their response: have Frontex deploy an aircraft to “fly day and night to help the French, Dutch and Belgian Police” monitor the coastline for crossings. The French interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, said at the time: “We cannot accept that any more people die.”
Marruecos solo acepta el 8% de las expulsiones de sus nacionales emitidas por la UE
Category: Press coverage
El País, 11 September 2024.
Tony Bunyan, 1941-2024
Category: News
Tony Bunyan, Statewatch's founder, Director (1991-2020) and Director Emeritus (2020-24), passed away on Monday 9 September. He was a trailblazing figure in the defence of civil liberties and human rights across Europe, leaving behind a legacy of tireless work and advocacy through his leadership at Statewatch, the organisation he founded in 1991 - as well as at The Shape of Things to Come library and archive (run by the Tony Bunyan Foundation) since 2018. He was an accomplished investigative journalist whose commitment to exposing the abuse of civil liberties ran throughout the entirety of his life.
Implementing the Pact: Commission calls for accelerated deportation procedures
Category: News
The Commission has called on EU institutions and member states to ramp up efforts to prepare for the deportations that will result from the new “return border procedure” introduced by the Pact on Migration and Asylum. The proposals come in a classified report obtained by Statewatch, which assesses non-EU states’ level of cooperation with removals from the bloc.
New EU-US agreement for “systematic exchange” of personal data under consideration
Category: News
US authorities are demanding direct access to EU member state databases for “routine traveller screening” in return for ongoing visa-free travel to the US. The demands fall outside the scope of existing EU-US agreements on the exchange of personal data. The Belgian Presidency of the Council of the EU suggested a new international treaty may be needed to facilitate the transfers – but also questioned whether the data exchange proposed by the US “is even possible under the EU-legislation.”
What happens if I’m rejected for an Etias – and can I appeal?
Category: Press coverage
i, 26 August 2024.
Frontex goes drone shopping as EU looks to keep migrants out
Category: Press coverage
EurActiv, 21 August 2024.
Immigration : l’Europe veut « mieux criminaliser » les exilés et leurs soutiens
Category: Press coverage
l'Humanité, 21 August 2024.
EU watchdog intervention forces Frontex to improve transparency
Category: News
Despite its reluctance to reform, the EU border agency improved its freedom of information processes after an intervention from the EU Ombudsman.
UK: Racist violence does not justify proposed expansion of police surveillance technology
Category: News
Following the racist pogroms that broke out across England at the end of July and beginning of August, the prime minister, Keir Starmer, announced a range of new policing measures - including a proposal for "wider deployment of facial recognition technology." A letter signed by more than two dozen organisations, including Statewatch, says that an expansion of live facial recognition "would make our country an outlier in the democratic world" and calls for the plan to be dropped.
La Unión Europea usará inteligencia artificial para controlar los flujos migratorios en las fronteras
Category: Press coverage
El Periódico de Catalunya, 1 August 2024.
UK artificial intelligence rules must protect rights, prevent worsening of structural power imbalances
Category: News
A letter from the #SafetyNotSurveillance coalition, of which Statewatch is a member, calls on the new Labour government to "protect people's rights and prevent uses of AI which exacerbate structural power imbalances." The government has announced that it will establishment legislation on AI, and the letter calls for that law to prohibit predictive policing and biometric surveillance, and to ensure sufficient safeguards, transparency and accountability for all other uses of AI technologies.
UK: Call for "serious, meaningful protection" from police facial recognition technology
Category: News
The UK's new Labour government must ensure "proper regulation of biometric surveillance in the UK," says a letter signed by nine human rights, racial justice and civil liberties groups, including Statewatch. "No laws in the UK mention facial recognition, and the use of this technology has never even been debated by MPs," the letter highlights. It calls on the new home secretary, Yvette Cooper, and the science, technology and innovation minister, Peter Kyle, to meet the signatory groups "to discuss the need to take action and learn from our European partners in regulating the use of biometric surveillance in the UK more broadly." A separate letter to Scotland's cabinet secretary for justice and home affairs raises similar points, and calls on the Scottish government "to stop the proposed use of live facial recognition surveillance by Police Scotland."
Police should have “more say in the EU policy-making process,” says Swedish government
Category: News
A “non-paper” circulated in the Council of the EU by the Swedish government in early June calls for “a fundamental change in perspective” in the fight against terrorism and organised crime, arguing that too many proposals are “watered down” by fundamental rights considerations.
How Sweden pushes for EU access to encrypted data
Category: Press coverage
EUobserver, 24 July 2024.
UK: National Oversight Mechanism would allow "learning, transparency and accountability" over state-related deaths
Category: News
The new Labour prime minister, Keir Starmer, has been called on by a broad coalition of organisations - including Statewatch - to set up a National Oversight Mechanism to collate the findings of investigations into state-related deaths. A letter from the coalition says that inquiries, inquests and investigations - for example, into deaths in police custody or medical facilities - "can pinpoint learning for the future to stop the same thing happening again." However, there is currently no central mechanism to collate those findings or ensure recommendations are implemented. "This is a disservice to bereaved families who look to investigations for the truth, answers, and assurance that future deaths will be prevented," says the letter, which calls for the establishment of a National Oversight Mechanism: "a new, independent body with the responsibility to collate, analyse and follow up on recommendations made during inquests, public inquiries, investigations and official reviews."
Implementing the Pact: obligation for fundamental rights monitoring
Category: Analysis
The recently adopted Screening Regulation under the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum sets out several requirements for the establishment and operation of a mechanism for monitoring the fundamental rights of people subject to “screening” procedures at the external borders. Based on a recent Council document on the implementation of article 10 of the Screening Regulation and EU Fundamental Rights Agency guidance, this article provides an overview of what is required and discusses some potential challenges that may arise.
EU: Council lowers threshold for migrant smuggling prosecutions
Category: News
EU institutions are discussing proposed changes to the law criminalising the facilitation of irregular migration, which has also been used to criminalise migrants and individuals acting in solidarity with them. The Belgian Council presidency presented a revised draft to other EU member states at the end of May, which would simplify the criminalisation of irregular entry, amongst other things. The draft will serve as the basis for further discussions within the Council, with Hungary now in the presidency role until the end of this year.
Almost 100 organisations call on EU to uphold the right to asylum
Category: News
Statewatch is one of 95 organisations that are calling on EU institutions and member states to uphold the right to asylum, and to halt the pursuit of deals, agreements and arrangements that would outsource asylum processing to third states. Doing so risks "undermining the international protection system," says the statement, noting that attempts to outsource asylum processing have caused "immeasurable human suffering and rights violations."
Out of sight, out of mind: EU planning to offshore asylum applications?
Category: News
In a letter sent to EU heads of state last month, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen named 2024 “a landmark year for EU migration and asylum policy,” but noted that the agreement on new legislation “is not the end.” She went on to refer to the possibility of “tackling asylum applications further from the EU external border,” describing it as an idea “which will certainly deserve our attention.”
Border externalisation: billions of euros, visa sanctions, and a wealth of documentation
Category: News
The second issue of our bulletin on EU border externalisation policies is now available.
Visa sanctions to increase deportations
Category: Analysis
Changes to the EU’s rules on visa issuance that came into force in 2020 have made it possible for sanctions to be introduced against states that fail to cooperate with deportations. For example, non-EU states that consistently fail to provide identity documents for their own nationals facing deportation from the EU can have visa fees increased, or the examination of applications slowed down. The tool appears to be popular with EU institutions and member states, and changes are on the way to “improve” its functioning. This analysis examines the mechanism itself, measures proposed or adopted under the mechanism, and recent proposals to develop and reform the system, and considers the way in which the idea of “solidarity” (between EU member states and EU bodies) is used as a weapon against third countries.
A bottomless pit: billions more euros for externalised border controls
Category: Analysis
In view of the recently concluded mid-term review of the EU’s budget, funding for the externalisation of migration control has been at the top of the political agendas of EU member states and institutions. In the words of the European Commission and the European External Action Service, funding “ensure[s] that the actions undertaken… continue delivering results.” A substantial increase in the EU budget is on the cards, at the same time as a possible shift towards a supposedly new “preventive model” for external migration control.
How the EU police training agency is cosying up to the Arab League’s political extradition body
Category: News
CEPOL, the EU police training agency, is collaborating with the Arab League’s political extradition body in spite of its human rights obligations.
UK: Parliamentary candidates must end "hateful and inflammatory rhetoric" against migrants
Category: News
Candidates in this week's general election in the UK should shun "hateful and inflammatory rhetoric" against migrants and support policies for "digital sanctuary," says a letter signed by 37 organisations, including Statewatch. Providing "digital sanctuary" for people means "ending the hostile digital environment, establishing robust privacy protections for migrants’ data and promoting inclusive digital policies," says the letter.
Come funzionano i voli di rimpatrio forzato dall’Italia alla Tunisia
Category: Press coverage
Internazionale, 24 June 2024.
Greek border deaths: Frontex management board knew about "systematic" violations
Category: News
An investigation by the BBC has put the Greek state’s deadly border policies back in the public eye – but there has so far been no mention in the press of Frontex’s operations in the country. Documents seen by Statewatch show that despite warnings from its own fundamental rights officials, Frontex’s senior staff and management board did nothing to halt the agency’s operations in Greece. Suspending or terminating operations is a legal obligation when rights violations “are of a serious nature or are likely to persist.” A case before the Court of Justice of the EU is seeking an order to halt Frontex’s Greek operations, with an appeal filed in January still pending.
The truth about the shadowy ‘Migration 5’
Category: Press coverage
Radio New Zealand, 17 June 2024.
Frontex collaboration with Libya: “we call them and try to persuade them to take them back”
Category: News
The EU Border and Coast Guard Agency, Frontex, has been accused of aiding the return of migrants who have fled Libya back to the country, and to possible torture and blackmail. Border guards who have worked for Frontex, speaking to journalists from the Swedish television programme Mission Investigate, by Sveriges Television (SVT), revealed just how close contact with groups in the country is. Meanwhile, a rescue mission in the Mediterranean being documented by Mission Investigate was fired upon by the so-called Libyan coast guard.
Automating the fortress: digital technologies and European borders
Category: Analysis
The fortification of Europe’s borders is inherently linked to the use of digital technologies. Indeed, the process would be unthinkable without them. From the biometric passports and automated gates used at border crossing points to the drones, sensor systems and detection technologies used to prevent and detect unauthorised migrants, digital technologies are crucial to a political project that seeks to give state authorities increased knowledge of – and thus control over – foreign nationals seeking to enter the EU. Vast quantities of public funding have been used to develop and deploy these technologies, and unless there is significant public and political opposition to the project, it is likely that the EU will provide far more money in the years to come. Given the harm caused by the ongoing reinforcement of Fortress Europe, and the myriad more beneficial ways in which those funds could be spent, that opposition is urgently needed.
Policing by design: the latest EU surveillance plan
Category: News
The EU should reintroduce mass telecommunications surveillance and create backdoors to encrypted data, a new plan drafted in secret by police and security officials says. To do so, close coordination between the state and industry would be required, to ensure what the plan calls “lawful access by design.” The plan repeats demands made many times over the years by officials, and may find a warm reception from the incoming European Commission.
Academic boycotts over Gaza war jeopardise Israel’s place in Horizon Europe
Category: News
Science|Business, 23 May 2024.
From Cutro to Pylos: what two shipwrecks reveal about Europe’s deadly migration policies
Category: Analysis
The anniversary of the shipwreck in Crotone on 26 February was marked by relatives and supporters of at least 94 people who died on the morning of that same day in 2023. They gathered on the beach in Cutro, in the city of Milan, and elsewhere in Italy: the names of the dead were read at public events, and survivors gave their testimonies.Three months later, it will also be the first anniversary of the Pylos shipwreck, in which at least 500 people lost their lives, and similar events will mark that anniversary. [1]
New EU migrant smuggling law: member states keen on maximum criminalisation
Category: News
The EU is moving towards adopting a renewed law to criminalise migrant smuggling, and member states in the Council have started making progress towards a position for negotiations with the Parliament. Some governments appear to favour maximum criminalisation, calling for a broad definition of smuggling to facilitate prosecutions – a position that has been taken on board by the Belgian Council Presidency in an initial compromise text.
Who’s a “potential terrorist or violent extremist threat”? Plans to exchange information about “future” criminals
Category: News
EU member states have finalised a set of “non-binding” criteria for assessing when someone may be labelled a potential terrorist or violent extremism threat. The intention is to feed European databases such as the Schengen Information System (SIS) and the Europol Information System (EIS), as well as Europol analysis projects such as “Hydra” and “Traveller”, according to a note circulated by the Belgian Council Presidency last month.
Europol migrant smuggling proposal torn to shreds by the Council
Category: News
The Belgian Presidency of the Council of the EU has proposed gutting the Commission’s proposal to increase Europol’s powers in human smuggling and trafficking cases. There is little that remains of the original proposal, aside from new “Operational Task Forces” led by member states (with a support role given to Europol) and a limited mandatory exchange of information on smuggling and trafficking investigations.
Finland and Italy want more military involvement in migration control
Category: News
The Finnish and Italian governments last month presented a plan on “countering instrumentalization of migration and migrant smuggling” to the EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting, calling for “innovative ways” to address the issues – including by increased cooperation between the EU and NATO.
The politics behind the EU-Mauritania migration partnership
Category: Analysis
On 7 March, the EU and Mauritania signed a landmark “migration deal.” This January note from the European Commission makes the case for the deal to EU member state representatives in the Council. Dated 26 January, and therefore preceding both the public announcement of the deal on 7 February and its signing one month later, the note offers insight into the politics behind the migration partnership deal between Mauritania and the EU.
Charting a course through the labyrinth of externalisation
Category: Analysis
“Migration is a European challenge which requires a European response” has become a favoured refrain of EU officials and communiques. While the slogan is supposed to reinforce the need for a unified EU migration policy, it also masks the reality of the situation. The EU’s response to migration – in particular, irregular migration – is increasingly dependent on non-EU, and non-European states. Billions of euros and huge diplomatic efforts have been expended over the last three decades to rope non-EU states into this migration control agenda, and the process of externalisation is accelerating and expanding. Understanding the institutions and agencies involved is a crucial first step for anyone working for humane EU asylum and migration policies.
Met police to pay ‘five-figure sum’ to French publisher arrested under anti-terror laws
Category: Press coverage
The Guardian, 29 April 2024.
New project to provide systematic monitoring of EU externalisation policy
Category: News
What are the objectives of the EU’s external migration policy? With which countries are new migration agreements planned? How is the EU seeking to integrate non-European states into its violent migration control regime? And what impact will this have on people seeking protection, migrants, democracy and human rights, inside and outside the EU?
EU: Council eyes role in “operationalising” the Pact on Migration and Asylum
Category: News
“The effectiveness of this new legal framework hinges on its successful implementation. This will require the adoption and application of regulatory adjustments at national level, the development or enhancement of equipment and infrastructure, the implementation of new systems, processes and procedures, reinforced coordination at national and EU level, and increased operational support and financial allocation.”
Putting the cart before the horse: the Commission’s proposal to increase Europol's powers
Category: Analysis
Hounded by criticism from civil society and EU member states over its new proposal to increase the powers of Europol, the European Commission has belatedly published an “analytical document” in lieu of a formal impact assessment. The new proposal would lead to the storage of vast quantities of information by Europol on human smuggling and trafficking cases, intended to increase investigations and prosecutions. However, the Commission’s document offers a minimal analysis of the potential impact on individual rights, particularly of people in vulnerable situations, and the data protection safeguards at Europol are inadequate for the proposed changes.
Italy: Press freedom under attack as three reporters face up to nine years in prison
Category: News
Three Italian journalists working for the newspaper Domani - Giovanni Tizian, Nello Trocchia and Stefano Vergine - face up to nine years in prison. An investigation by the Perugia Public Prosecutor alleges that they requested and received confidential documents from a public official, and breached the secrecy of the investigation through the request and publication of information in those documents. The articles in question concerned Italy's defence minister Guido Crosetto, who for years prior to becoming minister was paid by the arm industry as an advisor. Alongside multiple other organisations and media outlets, Statewatch has signed a statement calling on the Italian authorities to respect press freedom.
EU-Israel data agreement rings alarm bells
Category: News
At the beginning of the year, the European Commission approved the continuation of 11 personal data adequacy agreements with non-EU states. The approval allowed the continuation of unrestricted data flows with entities in the EU. In an open letter to the Commission, Statewatch and 10 other organisations raise a number of concerns regarding the agreement with Israel, arguing that problems with the rule of law and practices of mass surveillance by security and intelligence agencies call the adequacy agreement into question.
The EU Migration Pact: a dangerous regime of migrant surveillance
Category: News
The #ProtectNotSurveil coalition, of which Statewatch is a member, has issued a statement condemning "the criminalisation and digital surveillance of migrants" that will be ushered in by the new Pact on Migration and Asylum. The laws that are part of the Pact were given final approval by the European Parliament this afternoon. The statement explains how the new legal framework "will enable and in some cases mandate the deployment of harmful surveillance technologies and practices against migrants," whilst laying the foundations for the expanded use of invasive technologies in the future.
Policing migration: when “harm reduction” means “multipurpose aerial surveillance”
Category: News
The EU’s latest “operational action plan” on migrant smuggling gives a central role to Europol, which will receive data resulting from more than two dozen joint police operations launched by EU member states, EU agencies and a range of non-EU states. The UK is heavily involved in the plan, and is leading one activity. One objective is for harm reduction and assistance to victims, but the only activity foreseen is for Frontex to increase use of its “EUROSUR Fusion Services, including the Multipurpose Aerial Surveillance aircraft service.”
Migration Pact "will engender a proliferation of human rights violations" and must be rejected
Category: News
Ahead of Wednesday's final parliamentary vote on the laws that make up the EU's Pact on Migration and Asylum, 161 organisations - including Statewatch - have called on MEPs to vote against the new measures. The statement says that the new laws will create "a system whereby the right to seek asylum in the EU is severely threatened and will engender a proliferation of human rights violations," and should be rejected.
Hardwiring the externalisation of border control into EU law
Category: News
EU institutions have almost finalised negotiations on the Pact on Migration and Asylum, with MEPs due to vote on a range of new laws next week. Approval for the measures is almost certain – and when they come into force, they will turn the externalisation of migration and border control into legal obligations.
EU: Intelligence-sharing plan extended from asylum-seekers to "any foreigner involved in a migratory procedure"
Category: News
In 2022, EU member states began discussing ways to increase the amount of information sent to intelligence agencies on "the timing and state of progress of applications for international protection lodged by individuals posing a terrorist threat". Now the intention is to cover not just asylum-seekers, but "any foreigner involved in a migratory procedure." According to the Belgian Presidency, "security concerns go beyond the mere scope of applicants for international protection, as they also cover other people who apply for the legal right to stay in Europe."
Joint Statement: Egyptian authorities must end arbitrary detentions and forced deportations of Sudanese refugees and asylum seekers
Category: News
More than 25 organisations, including Statewatch, have signed a joint statement calling on the Egyptian government "to immediately stop the serious abuses against Sudanese seeking refuge in Egypt," including inhumane detention conditions, unfair proceedings, forced returns, racial profiling and the extraction of payments on promise of status regularisation. The statement follows a previous call made in October 2022 and comes in the context of the EU agreeing to provide a further €200 million to the Egyptian government for migration and border control.
EU funding drone technology used by Israel in Gaza war, claim monitors
Category: Press coverage
Euronews, 23 March 2024.
European money for the war in Gaza: how EU research funding supports the Israeli arms industry
Category: Analysis
Technologies developed with financial support from Europe are being used in the current war in Gaza, as they have been previously in occupation of Palestinian territory and marginalisation of the Palestinian people.
EU-funded drone technology being used in war on Gaza
Category: News
A drone manufacturer that is “supporting the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] 100%” in the war on Gaza received a €50,000 research and development grant from the EU, an analysis published today by Statewatch and Informationsstelle Militarisierung (Information Centre on Militarisation, IMI) reveals. Other Israeli military companies and institutions have received millions of euros for drone development in recent years, despite a supposed prohibition on EU funding for military and defence projects.
85 civil society organisations call on MEPs to uphold fundamental rights and reject the harmful Schengen Borders Code recast
Category: News
Alongside 85 other organisations, Statewatch has signed a joint statement calling on MEPs to reject changes to the Schengen Borders Code. The statement says that the new legislation will increase racial profiling, allow for "internal pushbacks" between Schengen states, invokes the questionable concept of "instrumentalisation of migration" to allow derogations from rights, and will lead to an increase in the use of new surveillance technologies.
“Action file” on Tunisia outlines EU’s externalisation plans
Category: News
An “action file” obtained by Statewatch lays out the objectives and activities of the EU’s cooperation on migration with Tunisia – whose government was heavily criticized by the European Parliament this week for “an authoritarian reversal and an alarming backslide on democracy, human rights and the rule of law.”
Parliamentary lawyers: democratic oversight needed for EU-Tunisia migration agreement
Category: News
Last July, the EU and Tunisia signed a memorandum of understanding in which the EU promised substantial support for Tunisian migration and border controls. An opinion by the European Parliament Legal Service, obtained by Statewatch, concludes that although the agreement is not legally binding, some form of parliamentary oversight is required. Currently, that is not the case, but MEPs are demanding it – in particular due to the authoritarian nature of many of the regimes the EU is supporting.
New report examines redress for systemic human rights violations in Turkish messaging app prosecutions
Category: Press release
PRESS RELEASE: A new report published today by Statewatch provides a comprehensive analysis of the Turkish authorities’ prosecutions of individuals for using an encrypted messaging app, providing insight into systemic human rights violations and potential remedies for those who have been wrongfully convicted.
ByLock Prosecutions and the Right to Fair Trial in Turkey: The ECtHR Grand Chamber’s Ruling in Yüksel Yalçınkaya v. Türkiye
Category: Publications and reports
This report analyses the European Court of Human Rights' judgement in the case Yalçınkaya v Türkiye, which found that a conviction based on the use of the encrypted messaging app ByLock violated a number of rights: no punishment without law; the right to a fair trial; and freedom of assembly and association. The judgement represents a milestone in the legal and political discourse surrounding ByLock convictions, and should be used as the basis for retrials for the tens of thousands of people who have been punished for their alleged use of the app.
Statewatch is seeking information on secrecy and security exceptions in asylum and immigration cases
Category: News
Individuals involved in immigration and asylum proceedings can face multiple barriers to a fair hearing: an unfamiliar or unknown language, a lack of legal aid, and limited support networks. There is also the possibility that secret evidence will be used to refuse their applications or deny them entry to the territory. To gather further evidence on the extent of this problem, and the possibilities that data protection law offers as a remedy, Statewatch has launched a questionnaire to gather evidence from affected individuals, lawyers and support groups.
Kunstmatige intelligentie maakt de Europese grenzen nog killer. ‘Europa verschuilt zich achter technologie’
Category: News
Nederlands Dagblad, 5 March 2024.
The case of Civipol: commodified mobility policing in West Africa and its colonial continuities
Category: Analysis
Current European attempts to outsource migration control to West Africa mirror historical entanglements between colonial logics, corporate interests and policing. This article looks at the place of public-private relations in French colonialism in order to historically situate the activities of Civipol, a French public-private actor owned both by the French state and major security companies, that has specialized in building African states’ internal security capacity.
Environmental activism under the EU counter-terror microscope
Category: Analysis
Next week, EU and member state officials will discuss “the role of climate change and environmental concerns in violent extremist and terrorist radicalisation.” A discussion paper for the meeting, obtained by Statewatch, considers the threat posed by “violent left-wing and anarchist extremism” – a heading under which a number of prominent environmental protest groups are mentioned. The inclusion of peaceful but disruptive groups in the paper may legitimate further police surveillance and infiltration, legal harassment and government crackdowns – a problem identified as “a major threat to human rights and democracy” by a UN Special Rapporteur.
Border security with drones and databases
Category: Analysis
The EU’s borders are increasingly militarised, with hundreds of millions of euros paid to state agencies and military, security and IT companies for surveillance, patrols and apprehension and detention. This process has massive human cost, and politicians are planning to intensify it.
UK: Law changes will make it harder to hold police to account for illegal data access
Category: News
An office for West Yorkshire Police, based in Leeds, has been convicted of breaches of the Computer Misuse Act 1990, after using police databases to search for information on people she knew with no legitimate reason. The case highlights the risks posed by forthcoming changes to UK data protection law.
Spain: Terrorism charges against protesters undermine "international human rights and democratic standards"
Category: News
A letter signed by 20 organisations from across Europe, including Statewatch, calls for the dropping of terrorism charges filed by the Spanish authorities against 12 protesters. The 12 face the charges for organising a blockade of Barcelona's El Prat airport and the motorway at La Jonquera, near the border with France, in protest at the jailing of Catalan independence leaders. "The misuse of the accusation of terrorism is unjustifiable," the letter says. It goes on to say that it undermines "international human rights and democratic standards" and "has a chilling effect on civic engagement."
Irak ottaa nyt palautettavat kansalaisensa vastaan, Somalia kieltäytyy yhä yhteistyöstä
Category: Press coverage
Helsingin Sanomat, 26 February 2024.
Frontex and deportations, 2006-22
Category: Analysis
Data covering 17 years of Frontex’s deportation operations shows the expanding role of the agency. We have produced a series of visualisations to show the number of people deported in Frontex-coordinated operations, the member states involved, the destination states, and the costs.
The growing infrastructure and business model behind (im)migration and surveillance technologies
Category: Events
Panel co-hosted by Statewatch and Privacy International at Privacy Camp 2024 in Brussels, Belgium.
Germany: Fatal police shootings in 2022
Category: Analysis
For the year 2022, the official firearm usage statistics of the Conference of the Ministers of the Interior recorded a total of 54 shots fired at people. 11 individuals were killed as a result. This is three more than the previous year. Legally, these shots were classified as self-defense/emergency aid. 41 people were injured due to police firearm use.
USA krever fri adgang til å søke i norske registre
Category: Press coverage
Bergens Tidende, 1 January 2024.
Police to be able to run face recognition searches on 50m driving licence holders
Category: Press coverage
The Guardian, 20 December 2023.
New Brexit fingerprint checks for UK travellers in Europe set to start in 2024
Category: Press coverage
i, 18 December 2023.
NGOs: EU asylum overhaul will create 'cruel system'
Category: Press coverage
EUobserver, 18 December.
Frontex working groups
Category: Observatory: Frontex
Frontex rules on the creation and functioning of internal working groups, and a chart of working groups as of early October 2023.
People-smuggling profits at historic high, EU concedes
Category: Press coverage
EUobserver, 28 November 2023.
Digital rights and the protection of the right to asylum in the Charter of the European Union
Category: Analysis
The right to asylum, as delineated in Article 18 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (EU) (‘the Charter’), does not grant the right to asylum to every individual seeking it. Instead, it articulates that everyone is entitled to have their application for international protection examined in line with international and EU law. This principle is reinforced by Article 19 of the Charter, which strictly prohibits collective expulsions and forbids the removal, expulsion or extradition of any person ‘to a State where there is a serious risk that he or she would be subjected to the death penalty, torture or other inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment’.
Europol löscht NoBorder-Initiativen aus Terrorbericht
Category: Press coverage
ND, 22 November 2023.
Svensken som ska hålla Frontex på mattan: ”Kan inte vara överallt”
ETC, 20 November 2023.
Migrazioni: l’Unione Europea pianifica nuovi accordi con Egitto e Tunisia mentre continua a sostenere la Libia nella lotta alle partenze
Category: Press coverage
La Repubblica, 19 November 2023.
Visafreiheit: USA wollen Zugriff auf EU-Biometriedaten bilateral durchsetzen
Category: Press coverage
Heise, 19 November 2023.
Webinar: Activists and NGOs under watch! Are you in Europol’s databases?
Category: Events
On 7 November, digital rights experts from EDRi and Statewatch will explore how civil society, activists and social movements have been increasingly criminalised and surveilled in Europe, and will introduce attendees to a new tool that will people request their data that is held by Europol. Access requests are an important tool in countering the abusive data collection practices by European police.
EU will drohendes Grenzchaos mit Biometrie und App verhindern
Category: Press coverage
Netzpolitik, 2 November 2023.
Greek data watchdog to rule on AI systems in refugee camps
Category: News
Computer Weekly, 30 October 2023.
Annual activity report 2022
Category: Publications and reports
Rights, freedom and democracy: the struggle is continuous
Dünya çapında kullanılıyor: İngiltere, derhal durdurmaları için harekete geçti!
Category: Press coverage
Haber7, 6 October 2023.
Surge in police use of facial recognition sparks concerns over wrongful targeting
Category: Press coverage
Morning Star, 26 September.
The cost of migration: Europe's response
Category: Press coverage
BBC, 20 September.
The new proposal on the security of EU information: a wider but incomplete legal framework for classified information
Category: Analysis
Part 3 of a series /// The proposal on security of EU information, as introduced, would create a legal framework for classified information with a number of gaps and loopholes that would prevent the European Parliament and the Court of Justice from exercising their roles as set out in the EU treaties. Changes are required to fix these problems.
The proposal on security of EU information: how to burst the bubble and open the EU fortress
Category: Analysis
Part 2 of a series /// The Commission's proposal on security of EU information threatens to fatally undermine the rules on access to documents, which are essential for transparency, openness and public participation in democratic-decision making. The European Parliament and the Council need to take action to fix the proposal on security of information. At the same time, there are clear steps they could take to improve the access to documents rules, ensuring that legislative deliberations are as open and transparent as required by the treaties.
Brexit: EU issues guidance after Britons 'wrongfully held' at Schengen borders
Category: Press coverage
The Local, 10 September 2023.
The proposal on security of EU information: transforming the “bubble” into a “fortress”?
Category: Analysis
Part 1 of a series /// EU institutions are currently discussing a proposal for a new law "on information security in the institutions, bodies, offices and agencies of the Union." While the objective itself may be legitimate, the proposal as it stands seeks to extend to other EU institutions and agencies the secrecy and opacity that has for so long characterised the work of the Council. It undermines existing legislation on public access to official documents and would fatally undermine the treaty obligation for the institutions, bodies, offices and agencies of the EU "to conduct their work as openly as possible." At the same time, the proposal fails to ensure the interinstitutional and interagecy cooperation necessary to ensure an effective administration.
Telling the story of EU border militarization: messages, principles and language
Addressing and preventing European border violence is a huge but necessary strategic challenge. This guide offers framing messages, guiding principles, and suggested language for people and organisations working on this challenge. It emerges from a process of discussion online and in-person between over a dozen organisations working in the European migrant justice space.
Telling the story of EU border militarization
Category: Publications and reports
Addressing and preventing European border violence is a huge but necessary strategic challenge. This guide offers framing messages, guiding principles, and suggested language for people and organisations working on this challenge. It emerges from a process of discussion online and in-person between over a dozen organisations working in the European migrant justice space.
International police data-sharing: what are the UK and EU cooking up?
Category: Analysis
For the last few years, British and European officials have been seeking ways to regain the ability to instantly share police data across borders – an ability that was lost after the UK left the EU at the end of 2020. The plan currently under development is to build a new data-sharing architecture encompassing the UK, the EU and other “international partners,” but substantive details of it are being kept under lock and key. The implications go beyond privacy and data protection, and raise questions about the potential uses of a new system to crack down on the right to protest, as well as the right to seek asylum.
Droni in Niger e radar nel Mediterraneo: l'Ue spende miliardi per confini hi-tech
Category: Press coverage
La Via Libera, 10 July 2023.
Europe's techno-borders
Category: Publications and reports
The digital technologies deployed as part of Europe’s techno-borders underpin invasions of privacy, brutal violations of human rights, and make the border ‘mobile’, for example through the increased use of biometric identification technologies, such as handheld fingerprint scanners. This report analyses the past, present and future of Europe’s “techno-borders,” the infrastructure put in place over the last three decades to provide authorities with knowledge of – and thus control over – foreign nationals seeking to enter or staying in EU and Schengen territory.
Surveillance technology and artificial intelligence: what impact for people on the move?
Category: Events
A webinar presenting a new report from Statewatch and EuroMed Rights (Europe's techno-borders); a new EuroMed Rights report (Artificial intelligence: the new frontier of the EU's border externalisation strategy); and an update on negotiations on the EU's Artificial Intelligence Act.
The human cost of AI in EU-Africa's migration surveillance
Category: Press coverage
EUobserver, 10 July.
Leak: EU ministers want to keep more obstacles for long term permits
Category: Press coverage
Euractiv, 7 July.
UK government must be more open on use of AI, say campaigners
Category: Press coverage
BBC News, 13 June.
Externalisation of migration control: from the 1990s to the present
Category: Analysis
A talk given by Statewatch researcher Yasha Maccanico at the TransBorder Camp in Nantes, July 2022.
Overvåkingen er ulovlig i EU. I Norge fortsetter den
Category: Press coverage
Bergens Tidende, 9 May 2023.
Visafreie Einreise: USA erwarten "systematische Transfers" biometrischer Daten
Category: Press coverage
Heise, 9 May 2023.
Wie soll künstliche Intelligenz reguliert werden?
Category: Press coverage
Republik, 18 April 2023.
The green police: anti-mafia powers for environmental crime investigations?
Category: Analysis
The European Commission's proposal for a new environmental crime Directive will significantly strengthen law enforcement powers. As well as introducing a range of new criminal offences at EU level, the proposed Directive encourages the use of intrusive policing tactics against suspected environmental crime offenders. Member states, however, aim to water down the Commission’s proposal to reduce the obligations on national authorities, and are concerned about what they see as an attempt to ‘overharmonise’ national criminal laws.
Viewpoint: How to make fences and influence people: a simple guide
Category: Analysis
Are you an EU member state looking to divert attention from the human rights abuses you are committing at your border? By following this simple guide, you can ensure that not only will the European Commission, the “Guardian of the Treaties”, turn a blind eye to those abuses, but that you will receive a healthy cash injection at the same time!
Prosecuting solidarity: extracts from a new book on the Riace case
Category: Analysis
A book about the political use of judicial proceedings to curtail a virtuous example of solidarity at work in reception practices in a small southern town in Calabria, Riace, led by its former mayor, Mimmo (Domenico) Lucano. Hearings of the appeal trial in Reggio Calabria are underway, after the first trial in Locri (whose sentence is commented on in these two extracts) found several defendants guilty, imposing lengthy prison terms (over 13 years for Lucano, over 80 years in total for 18 defendants) and financial penalties. The contributions to this book focus on the trial, the sentence, the appeal and the reality of the experience of Riace, including trial monitoring reports by Giovanna Procacci.
Submission to European Commission consultation on "security-related information sharing"
Category: Analysis
The Commission’s initiative for a ‘Security-related information sharing system between frontline officers in the EU and key partner countries’ is a further development along the path of problematic border externalisation, and a trend of increasing use of large-scale processing of the personal data of non-EU citizens for combined criminal law and immigration control purposes, that civil society has been speaking out against for years.
“Call them crazy”: Criminalisation of activists undermines rule of law in the EU
Category: Analysis
The Dutch police continue to disregard the rule of law to criminalise the pacifist activist Frank van der Linde. In recent years, his personal data has been sent to Europol, he has been labelled a terrorist, and police have suggested he be referred to a psychiatric facility. Far from an isolated case, van der Linde’s story shows just how far police in Europe will go to criminalise the right to protest and stifle political dissent.
Access denied: Secrecy and the externalisation of EU migration control
Category: Publications and reports
For at least three decades, the EU and its Member States have engaged in a process of “externalisation” – a policy agenda by which the EU seeks to prevent migrants and refugees setting foot on EU territory by externalising (that is, outsourcing) border controls to non-EU states. The EU’s New Pact on Migration and Asylum, published in September 2020, proposed a raft of measures seeking to step up operational cooperation and collaboration in order to further this agenda.
Migration policy overspill: access to information in peril
Category: Analysis
It is well-documented that the externalisation of migration and border policies by the EU and other western states has led to appalling violations of human rights. While this is by far the most important issue resulting from border externalisation, there are also many other negative effects - including attacks on the right to access and impart information.
Seulement 207 migrants relocalisés par le programme de volontariat de l'Union européenne
Category: Press coverage
InfoMigrants, 3 February 2023.
El nuevo mecanismo de reparto de refugiados de la UE vuelve a encallar
Category: Press coverage
El País, 1 March 2023.
Unaccompanied and separated children: patterns of child migration are changing at the southern Spanish border
Category: Analysis
Since the early 1990s thousands of "unaccompanied and separated children" have arrived on Spanish territory. The authorities have frequently violated their rights. Policy changes and other events have led to migration patterns shifting over the years. A debate is needed over the facilities and care provided for child migrants, who at the moment are often housed in large facilities that do not meet their needs or uphold their rights.
Pushbacks, migration policy and returns at the core of EU support for authoritarian regimes
Category: Analysis
The ongoing debate on pushbacks and rights violations at external EU borders neglects an important aspect: the EU and its states betray their claimed goal to promote human rights, the rule of law and civil society development worldwide by helping authoritarian regimes oppress their citizens, and also to stop them from leaving.
The European Union and its crises
Category: Analysis
Since the Amsterdam Treaty of 1999, various crises have served as a pretext for expanding EU security structures and the powers of repressive authorities. Politically motivated human rights abuses remain the order of the day and have been exacerbated by the recent “migration crisis” at the EU's eastern borders.
Frontex and interoperable databases: knowledge as power?
Category: Publications and reports
The EU’s border agency, Frontex, will be able to access vast quantities of data once the EU’s ‘interoperable’ policing and migration databases are fully operational. This briefing considers the agency’s use of data from two different perspectives – operational and statistical – and provides an overview of the agency’s role in the EU’s emerging “travel intelligence” architecture. It is aimed at informing understanding, analysis and critique of the agency and its role, with a view to making it possible to better understand, engage with and challenge future developments in this area.
Immigrazione, per contrastarla la Commissione Ue consiglia intese ‘segrete’: ecco gli effetti
Category: Press coverage
Il Fatto Quotidiano, 4 February 2023.
Longtime Client Majid Khan Released from Guantánamo, to Begin New Life in Belize
Category: News
Press release by the Center for Constitutional Rights on the release of Majid Khan from Guantámo and his transfer to Belize.
EU Commission wants drones for Bulgaria on Turkey border
Category: Press coverage
EUobserver, 1 February 2023.
Workshop: Policing the crisis, policing as crisis: the problem(s) with Europol
Category: Events
We are hosting a workshop at Privacy Camp 2023 in Brussels.
Submission for the EU Rule of Law Report 2023
Category: Evidence/Submission
On 20 January, we filed a submission to the European Commission's public consultation for its Rule of Law Report 2023, which will cover developments in 2022. Our submission highlights a number of topics - in particular regarding rule of law issues at EU level, surveillance, access to an effective remedy and the criminalisation of the press - that have not received sufficient attention in previous iterations of the report.
Frontex and deportations, 2006-21
Category: Analysis
Data covering 16 years of Frontex’s deportation operations shows the expanding role of the agency. We have produced a series of data visualisations to show the number of people deported in Frontex-coordinated operations, the member states involved, the destination states, and the costs.
Lotta al crimine, le scelte europee e le nuove regole di Europol, che possono essere utilizzate per controllare gli attivisti più critici
Category: Press coverage
Repubblica, 27 November 2022.
Secrecy and the externalisation of EU migration control
Category: Events
Since the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum was unveiled in September 2020, significant public and policy attention has been paid to the raft of new and recycled legal measures proposed. However, the Pact also includes a range of activities that do not undergo the same institutional to-and-fro as passing new laws.
Empowering the police, removing protections: the new Europol Regulation
Category: Publications and reports
This report examines the new powers granted to EU policing agency Europol by legal amendments approved in June 2022. It finds that while the agency's tasks and powers have been hugely-expanded, in particular with regard to acquiring and processing data, independent data protection oversight of the agency has been substantially reduced.
Retroplanning for the drafting of the Agency’s implementing rules for the processing of operational personal data (Article 90 EBCG Regulation)
Category: Observatory: Frontex
List of preparatory activities, consultations and meetings by the management board of Frontex between June 2021 and December 2021 ahead of the adoption the new Frontex rules on Operational Personal Data (‘OPD’), meant to be done by the end of 2021.
Data Protection Officer comments on the draft Frontex Management Board Decisions
Documents with the first and second round of comments on the draft decisions on processing operational personal data.
Sorvegliare in nome della sicurezza: le Agenzie Ue vogliono carta bianca
Category: Press coverage
Altreconomia, 1 November 2022.
Miliardi sulla pelle dei migranti: la sorveglianza delle frontiere fa ricca l’industria delle armi
Category: Press coverage
Espresso, 17 October 2022.
Evaluation of the 2019 Frontex Regulation: Statewatch submission to the European Commission call for evidence
Category: Evidence/Submission
We made a brief submission to the European Commission's call for evidence to inform the evaluation of the 2019 Frontex Regulation. The evaluation is due to be carried out between December 2022 and October 2023 by an external consultant. Our submission highlights issues concerning fundamental rights, transparency and accountability.
The Melilla border deaths represent a new phase in the bloody story of Fortress Europe
Category: Analysis
On 24 June dozens of people died after attempting to cross the heavily-fortified border from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Melilla. A report by the Nador branch of the Association Marocain des Droits Humains (AMDH), summarised and built upon here, examines the build-up to and immediate aftermath of the deadly incident. The report documents multiple human rights violations and also reveals a significant shift: from EU authorities undertaking pushbacks and leaving people to their fate in situations in which they may come to harm, to EU authorities undertaking pushbacks with the explicit knowledge that they would be beaten and treated in an inhumane and degrading manner by their non-EU ‘partners’.
Questioning the interviewers: Frontex’s covert interrogations at the Spanish southern border
Category: Analysis
Tony, a police officer deployed multiple times in Frontex operations in Spain and Greece, slips on the word “interrogate”. He immediately corrects himself: “We are not allowed to say interrogate”. We both know that the term interrogation fits perfectly well.
CJEU judgment on the Passenger Name Record Directive
Category: Observatory: Travel surveillance and passenger profiling
The Court of Justice appears to have rewritten the EU's Passenger Name Record (PNR) Directive in a case concerning the effects of the law on fundamental rights. While the ruling introduces a number of restrictions on what the authorities may do with PNR data, it nevertheless legitmises its ongoing use as a policing tool.
FSWG exchange of view: Frontex and non-EU countries
The LIBE Committee Frontex Scrutiny Working Group (FSWG) held an exchange of views on Frontex’s activities in non-EU countries today, though certain questions by members were left conspicuously unanswered.
AI at the borders: Negotiations, regulations and fundamental rights
Category: Events
The Commission’s proposed AI Act aims to address the risks of certain uses of artificial intelligence and to establish a legal framework for the trustworthy deployment of AI. In the context of migration and border control, the Act raises significant concerns, which must be addressed in ongoing negotiations within Parliament, and in future campaigning and advocacy. Join us on Monday 16 May to discuss how AI is already used in the migration control context, and some of the key amendments that must be tabled to adequately protect the rights of people on the move.
Tunisian deportees in Italy denied rights under European “migration management” policies that seek to exclude
Category: News
On 28 November 2021, Wissem Ben Abdellatif, a 26-year-old Tunisian man, died in a hospital in Rome after suffering a heart attack. He had been transferred to the hospital from the Ponte Galeria detention centre, where he was being held whilst awaiting deportation. A new report dedicated to his memory examines the experiences of Tunisian citizens deported from Italy. Based on over 50 in-depth interviews with deportees, it concludes that Tunisians are regularly denied their rights after arriving in Italian territory (for example, to legal advice, information, or adequate living conditions), and that the situation is propelled by a security-minded approach to migration that has been implemented across the EU and its member states for at least two decades.
A clear and present danger: Missing safeguards on migration and asylum in the EU’s AI Act
Category: News
The EU's proposed Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act aims to address the risks of certain uses of AI and to establish a legal framework for its trustworthy deployment, thus stimulating a market for the production, sale and export of various AI tools and technologies. However, certain technologies or uses of technology are insufficiently covered by or even excluded altogether from the scope of the AI Act, placing migrants and refugees - people often in an already-vulnerable position - at even greater risk of having their rights violated.
At what cost? Funding the EU’s security, defence, and border policies, 2021–2027
Category: Publications and reports
A critical guide for civil society on how EU budgets work. Co-published with the Transnational Institute.
Frontex: more power, no responsibility? Mega-agency lacks real accountability structure
Category: Analysis
Since 2004, four successive regulations have increased the agency’s resources and mandate, but no adequate control mechanisms have followed to balance these with legal or political accountability.
Agreement between the European Union and the Republic of Moldova on operational activities carried out by the European Border and Coast Guard Agency in the Republic of Moldova
Category: Observatory: Frontex
MEPs withhold discharge of EU border control agency Frontex’ accounts
Category: Observatory: Frontex
Budgetary Control Committee (CONT) press release details reasons behind postponement of the decision on the European Border and Coast guard Agency accounts for 2020.
Evaluation report: JO Flexible Operational Activities in Return 2015
Category: Observatory: Frontex
Operations Division, Joint Operations Unit Return Operations Sector
Evaluation report 2014: JO Attica
Category: Observatory: Frontex
Operation division Joint Operations Unit Return Operations sector
Fundamental Rights Strategy 2021
Category: Observatory: Frontex
Endorsed by the Fundamental Rights Officer on 25 January 2021
Evaluation report: Rapid Border Intervention Exercise 2017
Category: Observatory: Frontex
2017/PRU/05 Operations Division Joint Operations Unit Land Borders Sector
Evaluation report: Joint Operation VEGA Children 2018
Category: Observatory: Frontex
Operational Response Division Field Deployment Unit Planning and Evaluation Sector
Evaluation report: Joint Operation VEGA Children 2017
Category: Observatory: Frontex
Operations Division Joint Operations Unit Air Border Sector
Evaluation report: JO Triton 2017
Category: Observatory: Frontex
Operational Response Division Field Deployment Unit
Evaluation report: JO Poseidon 2018
Category: Observatory: Frontex
Operational Response Division Field Deployment Unit
Evaluation report: Pulsar Concept Joint Operation Pegasus 2018
Category: Observatory: Frontex
Operational Response Division Field Deployment Unit
Evaluation report: Pulsar Concept Joint Operation Pegasus 2017
Category: Observatory: Frontex
Operational Response Division Field Deployment Unit
Evaluation report: Joint Operation Minerva 2017
Category: Observatory: Frontex
Operations Division Joint Operations Unit Sea Borders Sector
Evaluation report: JO Hera 2018
Category: Observatory: Frontex
Operational Response Division Field Deployment Unit
Evaluation report: Joint Operation Focal Points 2018 Land
Category: Observatory: Frontex
Operational Response Division Field Deployment Unit
Evaluation Report: Focal Points Concept Joint Operation Focal Points Air 2017
Category: Observatory: Frontex
Regular Officers: Operations Division Joint Operations Unit Air Border Sector
Evaluation report: Focal Points Concept JO
Category: Observatory: Frontex
Focal Points 2017 Air – Intermediate Managers
Evaluation report: Joint Operation Focal Points 2017 Land
Category: Observatory: Frontex
Operational Response Division Field Deployment Unit
Evaluation report: JO Flexible Operational Activities 2018 Land on Border Surveillance
Category: Observatory: Frontex
Operational Response Division Field Deployment Unit
Evaluation report: Joint Operation Flexible Operational Activities 2018 Land on Border Checks
Category: Observatory: Frontex
Operational Response Division Field Deployment Unit
Evaluation report: JO Flexible Operational Activities 2017 Land on Border Surveillance
Category: Observatory: Frontex
Operational Response Division Field Deployment Unit
Evaluation Report: Joint Operation Flexible Operational Activites land 2017 on Border Checks
Category: Observatory: Frontex
Evaluation report: Joint Operation Coordination Points 2017
Category: Observatory: Frontex
Operations Division Joint Operations Unit Land Borders Sector
Evaluation report: Focal points concept
Category: Observatory: Frontex
Joint Operation Coordination Points Air 2018
Building the biometric state: Police powers and discrimination
Category: News
This report examines the development and deployment of biometric identification technologies by police and border forces in Europe, and warns that the increasing use of the technology is likely to exacerbate existing problems with racist policing and ethnic profiling.
Mariana Gkliati and Jane Kilpatrick: Crying Wolf Too Many Times: The Impact of the Emergency Narrative on Transparency in FRONTEX Joint Operations
Category: Observatory: Frontex
Crisis-driven EU policy in recent years fits within a securitisation narrative, in which the claim of public security threat outweighs fundamental rights and their accountability safeguards. Under this policy development, Frontex, the EU Border and Coast Guard Agency, has experienced an impressive expansion in its powers and competences, without the equivalent enhancement of accountability safeguards. This article, published in the Utrecht Law Review, focuses in particular on the issue of transparency as a fundamental right and an element of social and political accountability.
Joint Operation Coordination Points 2018 Land Operational Response Division Field Deployment Unit Operational Planning and Evaluation Sector
Category: Observatory: Frontex
Frontex evaluation report 2018: Joint Operation Coordination Points 2018 Land Operational Response Division Field Deployment Unit Operational Planning and Evaluation Sector
JO Alexis 2018 Operational Response Division Field Deployment Unit
Category: Observatory: Frontex
Frontex evaluation report 2018 JO Alexis 2018 Operational Response Division Field Deployment Unit
Pulsar Concept Joint Operation Alexis 2017 Operations Division Joint Operations Unit Air Border Sector
Category: Observatory: Frontex
Frontex evaluation report 2017
Category: Observatory: Frontex
Frontex evaluation report 2017 Focal Points Concept Joint Operation Focal Points Sea 2017
Frontex staff code of conduct
Category: Observatory: Frontex
Frontex staff code of conduct 2015
Code of conduct for return operations
Category: Observatory: Frontex
Following Decision of the Executive Firector No R-ED-2018-40 adopting the code of conduct for return operations and return interventions coordinated or organised by Frontex of 26/04/2018
Annual report on sea surveillance
Category: Observatory: Frontex
Frontex´ Annual Reports on the implementation on the EU Regulation 656/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 May 2014 establishing rules for the surveillance of the external sea borders
Annual information on the commitments of the member states to the European Border Guard teams and the Technical Equipment Pool
Category: Observatory: Frontex
Annual report on the implementation on the EU Regulation 656/2014
Frontex’ Annual Report on the implementation on the EU Regulation 656/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 May 2014 establishing rules for the surveillance of the external sea borders.
Mariana Gkliati and Jane Kilpatrick: Frontex cooperation with third countries: examining the human rights implications
Category: Observatory: Frontex
Building walls, restricting rights: Lithuania's response to the EU-Belarus border 'crisis'
Category: News
After the ongoing politico-diplomatic clash between the EU and Belarus reached a peak in the summer of 2021, press attention turned towards the situation at the Polish-Belarussian border, where thousands of people arrived hoping to travel onwards to EU territory. However, the response from the Lithuanian authorities also merits examination: the country's efforts to prevent irregular arrivals have been widely supported by the EU, despite widespread allegations of fundamental rights violations.
Funds for Fortress Europe: spending by Frontex and eu-LISA
Category: Analysis
In the wake of the so-called “refugee crisis” of 2015, EU governments took the opportunity to reinforce the powers and mandates of EU agencies concerned with immigration and border control. Expanded legal remits were accompanied by vast increases in expenditure. But where has that money gone and what has it been used for?
Frontex: the ongoing failure to implement human rights safeguards
Category: Analysis
A legal case alleging that Frontex was involved in an illegal deportation and the annual report of its Consultative Forum on Fundamental Rights, made up of NGOs and international organisations, show once again that fundamental rights are not at the top of the agency’s agenda.
Action brought on 21 May 2021 – SS and ST v Frontex (Case T-282/21)
Category: Observatory: Frontex
In May 2021 the organisation front-LEX filed legal proceedings against Frontex at the European Court of Justice, calling on the tribunal to force Frontex to terminate its activities in the Aegean Sea due to the "undisputed and overwhelming evidence for serious and persisting violations of fundamental rights" in the agency's area of operations. The application was made on behalf of two people - a child asylum-seeker and an adult who is now a recognised refugee in Greece, known as SS and ST - and argues that Frontex had contributed to the fundamental rights violations they suffered on the journey to Greece.
Brexit: Goodbye and hello – the new EU-UK security architecture, civil liberties and democratic control
Category: Publications and reports
The UK government's domestic programme seeks to crack down on dissent and to abolish or severely limit ways for the public to hold the state to account. This report shows that those ambitions also play a role in the post-Brexit agreement with the EU. The treaty makes it possible for the UK to opt in to intrusive EU surveillance schemes with no explicit need for parliamentary scrutiny or debate, and establishes a number of new joint institutions without sufficient transparency and accountability measures.
Action for damages for illegally deporting people and violating fundamental rights
Category: Observatory: Frontex
Court: EU General Court
MANAGEMENT BOARD DECISION 68/2021 of 21 December 2021 adopting the rules on processing personal data by the Agency
Category: Observatory: Frontex
Text of the Management Board Decision 68/2021 of 21 December 2021 adopting the rules on processing personal data by the agency.
MANAGEMENT BOARD DECISION 69/2021 of 21 December 2021 adopting the rules on processing operational personal data by the Agency
Category: Observatory: Frontex
Text of the Management Board Decision 69/2021 of 21 December 2021 adopting the rules on processing operational personal data by the agency.
Notification of the Management Board Decision 69/2021 adopting the rules on processing operational personal data by the agency
Category: Observatory: Frontex
Management Board Decision 69/2021 of 21 December 2021 adopting the rules on processing operational personal data by the agency.
Série Frontex : résumés
Category: Analysis
Depuis le lancement de ses opérations conjointes, Frontex a été accusée de détourner le regard de ses obligations légales en matière de respects des droits, et en particulier concernant le sauvetage en mer. Statewatch, membre de Migreurop, à travers la plume de Jane Kilpatrick, chercheur et membre de l’équipe salariée de Statewatch, et Marie Martin, collaboratrice de Statewatch, a publié une série de trois analyses sur les aspects juridiques et politiques qui ont amené à cette situation « d’impunité choisie ». Vous trouverez ci-joint un résumé en anglais et français, ou qui souhaitent accéder aux arguments principaux émis dans ces analyses. (Versions anglaises ci-dessous).
UK: Statewatch submission to consultation on reform of the Data Protection Act 2018
Category: Analysis
Submission by Statewatch to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport’s consultation on reforms to the UK’s Data Protection Act 2018.
Greece: The new hotspots and the prevention of “primary flows”: a human rights disaster
Category: Analysis
The Greek government and the EU have evicted various self-managed hospitality structures and are now closing down the squalid, state-run refugee camps on the islands of the Aegean. People are being transferred to newly-built "closed controlled access centres". These prison-like facilities, which are coming into use at the same time as a the services available to refugees are being cut back, are having injurious effects upon people's mental health and wellbeing. Nevertheless, with the Greek government focusing on preventing "primary flows", it seems the new camps are set to play a growing role in the detention of people awaiting deportation.
Algorithmic persecution in Turkey’s post-coup crackdown: The FETÖ-Meter system
Category: Publications and reports
Based on interviews with exiled members of the Turkish military, this report looks at how the Turkish authorities utilised something called the 'FETÖ-Meter' - an Excel-based algorithm based on hundreds of data points about individuals' activities, education, work history, family and personal contacts - to target officials for persecution in the wake of the attempted July 2016 coup.
Monitoring the state and learning from history: policing and racism in the Statewatch Library & Archive
Category: Events
We invite you to join us in exploring the connections, similarities and differences between past and present events and struggles through an examination of materials from the Statewatch Library & Archive, a collection of over 800 books, 2,500 items of ‘grey literature’ and a host of other documents and ephemera concerning civil liberties and the state.
Frontex cooperation with third countries: examining the human rights implications
Category: Analysis
While Frontex is currently under unprecedented examination for human rights violations at the EU’s borders, its work beyond EU borders remains barely scrutinised, write Dr Mariana Gkliati and Statewatch researcher Jane Kilpatrick in Forced Migration Review.
Secrecy in the European Union: how to exercise your right to information
Category: Events
This online event is held with the School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol and is supported by the Economic and Social Research Council's as part of the Festival of Social Sciences . We will look at how governments have sought to maintain secrecy in the EU, and teach you how you can exercise your right to access information.
UK: Nationality and Borders Bill: Biometric 'permission to travel' scheme will affect tens of millions of people
Category: Analysis
Submission by Statewatch to the UK Parliament Joint Committee on Human Rights inquiry into the human rights implications of the Nationality and Borders Bill.
Frontex, secrecy and story-telling: control of information as super-strategy
Category: Analysis
EU border agency Frontex spends a significant amount of time and money on its public image, and insists that its activities are fully transparent. However, that public image is - unsurprisingly - heavy on spin, and panders to far-right narratives. Meanwhile, its commitment to transparency is questionable - to say the least.
To SAR or not to SAR, part 2: Legal firewalls of a very political agency
Category: Analysis
The second part of an analysis looking at the legal firewalls that create blurred responsibilities in cases of search and rescue and pushbacks, shielding EU border agency Frontex from accountability measures.
To SAR or not to SAR, part 1: Why is Frontex expected to save lives at sea?
Category: Analysis
The first in a four-part series looking into the activities and operations of EU border agency Frontex, examining the evolution of the agency’s search and rescue obligations since it was founded in 2004. Many organisations have warned that “protecting borders” may conflict with “protecting lives” and experience suggests that, what are presented as two distinct objectives are, more often than not, part of conflicting policy agendas. The controversial and deadly practices that have been brought into the spotlight by the Aegean allegations are ultimately the result of political decisions that highlight the dubious priorities of the EU, its member states and its agents – Frontex included.
Deportation Union: the role of Frontex
Category: Events
Join Statewatch and the Transnational Institute (TNI) on Monday 14 December for the third and final webinar in the series covering Statewatch’s report ‘Deportation Union: Rights, accountability and the EU's push to increase forced removals’.
Deportation Union: databases for expulsions
Category: Events
The second in our series of webinars exploring the report 'Deportation Union: Rights, accountability and the EU's push to increased forced removals'.
Deportation Union: revamped return policies and reckless forced removals
Category: Events
On 28 September Statewatch and TNI hosted the first webinar of a three-part series accompanying the publication of the report 'Deportation Union: Rights, accountability and the EU's push to increased forced removals'.
Deportation Union: Rights, accountability and the EU's push to increase forced removals
Deportation Union provides a critical examination of recently-introduced and forthcoming EU measures designed to increase the number of deportations carried out by national authorities and the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, Frontex. It focuses on three key areas: attempts to reduce or eliminate rights and protections in the law governing deportations; the expansion and interconnection of EU databases and information systems; and the increased budget, powers and personnel awarded to Frontex.
Automated suspicion: The EU's new travel surveillance initiatives
This report examines how the EU is using new technologies to screen, profile and risk-assess travellers to the Schengen area, and the risks this poses to civil liberties and fundamental rights. By developing ‘interoperable’ biometric databases, introducing untested profiling tools, and using new ‘pre-crime’ watchlists, people visiting the EU from all over the world are being placed under a veil of suspicion in the name of enhancing security.
Report launch: Automated suspicion: The EU’s new travel surveillance initiatives
Category: Events
Normal people are increasingly being treated as suspects when they travel to the EU. What are the risks for civil liberties?
Biometrics, big data and state power
Category: Events
Tue, 11 February 2020, 18:30–20:00
Northern Ireland: The legacy of collusion
Category: Events
Thursday 30 January 2020: 18.00 - 20.00 at: Statewatch, c/o: MAYDAY ROOMS, 88 Fleet St, London EC4Y
Data Protection, Immigration Enforcement and Fundamental Rights: What the EU’s Regulations on Interoperability Mean for People with Irregular Status
Category: Publications and reports
This paper examines the EU’s justice and home affairs databases and information systems, the changes that have been introduced by recent legislation seeking to make those systems ‘interoperable’ and the potential implications of those changes for fundamental rights, in particular in relation to undocumented migrants.
Launch of the Statewatch Library & Archive
Category: Events
The Statewatch Library & Archive is being launched on Thursday 22 November 2018 at May Day Rooms in London: 18.00 - 20.00.
Market Forces: the development of the EU security-industrial complex
While the European Union project has faltered in recent years, afflicted by the fall-out of the economic crisis, the rise of anti-EU parties and the Brexit vote, there is one area where it has not only continued apace but made significant advances: Europe’s security policies have not only gained political support from across its Member States but growing budgets and resources too.
Eurodrones, Inc.
Eurodrones, Inc. tells the story of how European citizens are unknowingly subsidising through their taxes a controversial drone industry yet are systematically excluded from any debates about their use. Behind empty promises of consultation, EU officials have turned over much of drone policy development to the European defence and security corporations which seek to profit from it.
The Atlas of Migration in Europe
The second edition of Migreurop's Atlas of Migration in Europe.
Back from the battlefield: domestic drones in the UK
Back from the battlefield: domestic drones in the UK aims to contribute to the public debate on the use of drones within the UK.
Vol 22(4): EU intelligence secrecy; Roma expulsions; Italy's open-ended emergency; Northern Ireland cover-ups
Cover story: Secrecy reigns at the EU’s Intelligence Analysis Centre
Vol 22(2/3): UK secret justice; when dissent becomes subversion; Sean Rigg's death; Frontex and travel surveillance
Cover story: UK: Government’s “secret justice” Bill widely condemned
Vol 22 (1): Repression of anti-austerity activists; growing racism in the EU; regulating civil society
Cover story: European governments step up repression of anti-austerity activists
Counter-terrorism, 'policy laundering' and the FATF: legalising surveillance, regulating civil society
This report examines the global framework for countering terrorist financing developed by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and other international law enforcement bodies.
Vol 21 (4): EU-US cybersecurity cooperation; German state trojans; forced returns monitoring
Cover story: “Tackling new threats upon which the security and prosperity of our free societies increasingly depend” : the EU-US Working Group on Cyber Security and Cyber crime
Vol 21 (3): Criticism of UK terrorism measures; the Arab Spring and the EU; telecoms interception in Dresden
Cover story: Criticism of UK Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures mounts as government retains power to forcibly relocate suspects
Vol 21 (2): The police and security research; Anglo-German undercover police exchanges; ten years after the Genoa G8
Cover story: A new player in Secuirty Research: the European Network of Law Enforcement Technology Services (ENLETS)
Vol 21 (1): Europe's DNA databases; the death of Jimmy Mubenga; German police shooting
Cover story: “Network with errors”: Europe’s emerging web of DNA databases
Vol 20 (3/4): Time to rethink terrorist blacklisting; EU democratic deficit; "preventative" public order arrests
Cover story: Time to rethink terrorist blacklisting: doubts over legality, effectiveness and disproportionate impact on the rights of affected parties
Vol 20 (2): EU internal security strategy; international summit protests; "speculative invoicing" in the UK
Cover story: First thoughts on the EU's internal security strategy
Vol 20(1): Dutch databases challenged; convictions in France over detention centre fire; "open source" intelligence industry
Cover story: Dutch central database containing fingerprints of all citizens challenged
Vol 19 (4): DNA retention in the UK; abuse in Italian prisons; children in detention; EU decision-making process
Cover story: UK government's "clumsy, indiscriminate and disproportionate" approach to DNA retention
Data exchange, exclusion and denial at the borders
<p>Upholding the right to an effective remedy</p>
Following the roadmap: unmasking the EU’s security AI plans
<p>Exposing and explaining security AI projects being undertaken behind closed doors by national and EU officials.</p>
Outsourcing borders
<p>Monitoring EU externalisation policy</p>
The “security playbook” and migrants’ rights activism
<p>Examining the criminalization of migrants’ rights work and how this is driven by or intersects with the overreach and abuse of security and counter-terrorism laws, policies, measures, and technological tools.</p>
Transnational security architecture, civic space and human rights
<p>This project aims to strengthen global civil society efforts to counter the use of international counter-terrorism and security norms as a means for undermining or restricting civic space and human rights.</p>
Access to EU documents: Calling the agencies to account
<p><em>Statewatch</em> complaints to the European Ombudsman regarding the transparency obligations of Frontex, Europol and Eurojust<br /></p>
SECILE: Does counter-terrorism just counter terrorism?
<p>Securing Europe through Counter-terrorism: Impact, Legitimacy and Effectiveness (SECILE)</p>
JUSTICIA: European Rights Network
<p>A joint initiative of 19 independent civil society organisations in 17 members states</p>
Migration Control
<p>Who gets paid, to stop the world's refugees?</p>
Moving Stories
<p>How journalism plays follow-my-leader with rhetoric of negativity</p>
Invisible Borders
<p>A prize-winning cross-border investigative journalism project</p>
EU justice and home affairs agencies
<p>Transparency, accountability and fundamental rights</p>
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