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Surveillance and data-driven discrimination: 10 threats to migrants and refugees

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21 July 2020

Privacy International set out ten threats to the rights of migrants and refugees stemming from "surveillance practices and data-driven immigration policies".

See: 10 threats to migrants and refugees (PI, link):

"Key findings

• Migrants are bearing the burden of the new systems and losing agency in their migration experience, particularly when their fate is being put in the hands of systems driven by data processing and so called tech innovations.
• Large amounts of data are being requested from migrants, from their fingerprints to their digital data trails, while they are often put in a situation of constant surveillance.
• Private military and security companies play essential roles in providing a variety of surveillance tech and data exploitation ‘solutions’ and services to governments."

The ten threats highlighted by PI are:

1. Data Sharing: turning public officials into border guards
2. Mobile Phone Extraction: your phone is fair game
3. Social Media Intelligence: what does a Facebook like say about you?
4. Predictive Policing: a feedback loop that reinforces racial bias
5. Lie Detectors: security on scientifically dubious grounds
6. Border Externalisation: outsourcing border controls and surveillance
7. Biometrics Processing: a feast of databases
8. Facial Recognition: making surveillance frictionless
9. Artificial Intelligence: your fate in the hands of the system
10. Private Companies: when the border is a good business