This Monday, Amnesty International warned against the use of artificial intelligence to harm asylum seekers, and against electronic surveillance and racial discrimination that undermine human rights.
In a report published this Monday entitled “Protecting the rights of refugees and migrants in the digital age,” the non-governmental organization (NGO) warns that “these technologies are increasingly becoming fundamental human rights.”
States are using artificial intelligence surveillance and control mechanisms to “violate their human rights obligations towards refugees and migrants,” the organization says.
In a statement quoted in the statement, Amnesty International’s artificial intelligence and human rights technology adviser Matt Mahmoudi believes that “the proliferation of these technologies risks perpetuating and increasing discrimination, racism, and the disproportionate and unlawful surveillance of racialized people.”
The report documents how governments are using certain technologies in asylum and migration systems, citing as an example the intensive surveillance and electronic monitoring programs in the United States that are designed to “monitor migrants and asylum seekers released from detention.” It also calls for the construction of “artificial intelligence-powered watchtowers along the U.S.-Mexico border that increase the risk of profiling of Black, Latino and other racialized communities.”
In the case of the European Union, “aerial surveillance and drones are carried out in real time over the central Mediterranean to identify ships carrying refugees and migrants at sea and coordinate with Libyan authorities their arrival on European shores.” Amnesty International is calling for the future use of “an EU-funded automated border control system called iBorderCtrl”, which has already been trialled in Hungary, Greece and Latvia.
“The project used an artificial intelligence ‘lie detector’ system to interview travelers about to cross the border and evaluate the fine details of their facial expressions using facial and emotion recognition technology,” the organization said. If the system deems the answers to be honest, respondents “receive a code that allows them to cross the border.”
These technologies “increase exclusion and block the movement of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees of colour, Muslims and people of color” through “border regimes that discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin and citizenship status,” Amnesty International warns. .
To try to overcome the situation, the NGO calls on states to protect “the rights of people on the move by refraining from using technologies that are contrary to human rights, and by ensuring that digital technologies counter systemic racism, xenophobia and discrimination.”
The report also calls for an end to the use of “artificial intelligence-based emotion recognition tools” and “automated risk assessment and profiling systems in the areas of migration, asylum management and border control.”
In the case of asylum claims, the NGO insists on a ban on “any use of predictive technology that threatens” this internationally recognized right.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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