The rise of border tech, and civil society’s attempt to resist it, through the AI Act's eyes
The session focused on the currently negotiated Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act) and how the legislation is failing to protect people on the move despite civil society’s recommendations. Simona De Heer highlighted the lack of clarity and transparency in the European Union’s and Member States’ development and uses of technology in migration. This technology is used to profile, analyse and track people on the move all the time. Prof Niovi Vavoula explained that these AI systems are inherently biased, creating a power imbalance and divide between foreigners and non-foreigners. While there is no ban on tech uses in migration, discriminatory practices are on the rise like emotion recognition and behaviour analysis, predictive analytics, risk profiling and remote biometric identification in migration.
Alyna Smith shed light on the impact such uses of AI-powered technologies have on undocumented people as ID checks have become part of a strategy to increase deportations. An underlying element of these practices is racial profiling and criminal suspicion against migrants. Evidence shows that 80% of border guards say that ethnicity was a useful indicator. Hope Barker highlighted that the issue is not the tech itself but the uses of tech for harmful ends. For example, reports show that Frontex officers have taken images and videos of people on the move without consent. Or cases of drones collecting a vast amount of data without people’s knowledge of how the information will be used in countries like Croatia, Greece, North Macedonia, and Romania.
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28 сен 2024
