Argentine President Javier Milei announced an ambitious plan to use artificial intelligence to predict, detect, and investigate crimes. While the initiative aims to enhance security, it raises serious concerns about extensive surveillance and policing.
Last week, Argentina's Ministry of Security unveiled the Artificial Intelligence Applied to Security Unit (UIAAS), which aims to use "machine-learning algorithms to analyze historical crime data to predict future crimes and help prevent them." The tools at the UIAAS's disposal include facial recognition software, social media monitoring, drone surveillance, and real-time security footage analysis to identify political threats and criminal groups.
"The advancement of technology, particularly artificial intelligence, represents one of the most relevant socio-technological changes for the general population," said Security Minister Patricia Bullrich, citing the United States, China, India, and Israel as examples of countries using AI in security operations.
Bullrich emphasized that the UIAAS would "significantly improve the efficiency of the different areas of the ministry and of the federal police and security forces, allowing for faster and more precise responses to threats and emergencies."
The new AI unit will consist of police officers and agents from various security forces tasked with overseeing the "prevention, detection, investigation, and prosecution of crime." Key functions include identifying cyber threats, handling bomb disposal with robots, enhancing communication speed among security teams, and managing large volumes of data. Additionally, the UIAAS will monitor social media networks in real time to detect potential threats, suspicious financial transactions, and other indicators of illegal activities.
Despite Milei's libertarian stance on several issues like privatization and deregulation, there are growing fears that Argentina's predictive policing program could become a tool for oppression, leading to extensive monitoring of citizens and threats to their freedoms.
"Large-scale surveillance affects freedom of expression because it encourages people to self-censor or refrain from sharing their ideas or criticisms," says Amnesty International Executive Director Mariela Belski about the program.
"The government body created to patrol social networks, applications and websites contradicts several articles of the National Constitution," Martín Becerra, a professor and researcher in media and information technology, told El País. "The government of Milei (and Bullrich) is anti-liberal. It decrees new regulations, reinforces the state's repressive function, increases the opacity of public funds and eliminates norms that sought to protect the most vulnerable."
While predictive policing promises to target future risks and lower crime rates, it "has become just another excuse for the authorities to hammer those who rub them the wrong way," explains Reason's J.D. Tuccille. Similar programs in the U.S. have faced scrutiny for misusing data to target innocent people.
"The accuracy of predictive policing programs depends on the accuracy of the information they are fed," Reason's Ronald Bailey notes. "We should always keep in mind that any new technology that helps the police to better protect citizens can also be used to better oppress them."
Argentina's own history with surveillance technology adds weight to these concerns. In 2019, Buenos Aires implemented a facial recognition surveillance system, known as the Fugitive Facial Recognition System (SNRP), to identify fugitives by matching video images with a national database. But the system led to several wrongful arrests and the unlawful collection of data on hundreds of journalists, academics, and human rights activists. Legal challenges resulted in the suspension of the program in 2022, after a court ruled it unconstitutional due to inadequate control and oversight.
"Only Argentina's around 40,000 fugitives from justice may be searched for with the system," Judge Andres Gallardo said about the SNRP investigation. "But the number of personal data requested by the city was almost 10 million. The government could never explain why so much data was requested that did not belong to fugitives."
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