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Citizens often ask: “Why should we care about mass surveillance? It is a common misconception that if we have done nothing wrong and have no intention of committing a crime, we should have no problem with our government monitoring us, collecting our data personal data and monitors our online communications.
Mass surveillance has a harmful impact – not only on our human rights – but also on our daily lives. On this International Data Privacy Day, we need to talk about the growing state of surveillance here in Europe and around the world.
You may have heard of the Pegasus spyware scandal that a consortium of journalists, including Forbidden storiesand partners, broke in July 2021. Their findings revealed the extent to which surveillance software is being used to target journalists, lawyers, politicians and activists around the world. One of the scariest aspects of this monitoring software is how intrusive it is. Using zero-click attack methods, Pegasus spyware can use a mobile phone as a listening device, record via its camera and copy all files, messages and photos from the device without even a click of the device. from the user.
We have already seen the concrete impacts. Journalists whose phones were infiltrated in Mexico and El Salvador and whose lives were threatened; human rights defenders in Bahrain and Jordan who were targeted and arrested; the family phones of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi were found to be infected with Pegasus spyware after his brutal assassination in Turkey in 2019. This spyware is also known to have been purchased and used in Europe, including to target journalists in Hungary . In total, more than 50,000 numbers around the world were targeted.
This sophisticated software can be remotely activated and track the target through the personal device many of us carry daily. It effectively turns our mobile phone into a portable surveillance system.
In Serbia, recent allegations of phone tapping have put the population on alert. Russian opposition candidates claim that recordings of their meetings that took place last year in Belgrade were handed over to the Russian state by Serbian officials. Serbia may be widely considered a safe country to visit, but the increasing level of surveillance puts the human rights of all citizens and visitors at risk.
Faced with these recent revelations, we also suspect that surveillance is being deployed on a large scale, as part of the “Safe City” project. Through this project, a large number of security cameras, equipped with facial recognition technology, were purchased from the Chinese company Huawei. Although Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin denies that these cameras have been deployed in Serbia, civil society organizations, citizens and politicians remain skeptical of this claim. Representatives of civil society conducted a cartography exercise in Belgrade, making it possible to locate all the surveillance cameras in the city. Up to 8,000 cameras could have been purchased under the 2017 Safe City strategic cooperation agreement, with capabilities ranging from behavioral analysis to facial recognition to automatic license plate recognition .
On April 27, 2021, with my colleagues from the European Parliament, I wrote to Minister Vulin to ask for clarification on these cameras. Yet our questions about the acquisition, installation and use of these cameras remain unanswered.
The use of biometric technology in Belgrade is neither necessary nor proportionate. Milan Marinovic, the Serbian commissioner for information of public importance and personal data protection, has himself raised objections to these surveillance cameras, stating in 2019: “There is no legal basis for the implementation of the Safe City project”. What is even more concerning is that these intrusive surveillance technologies were acquired under obscure circumstances, without due diligence and in the absence of any transparency.
Serbian citizens have the right to know how public funds are spent. They also deserve to know if they are being monitored at every corner, if their personal data is being stored and to whom it is being transferred.
Serbian authorities could not assure us that the cameras purchased from Huawei in 2019 had not yet been installed or used and that the biometric data of Serbian citizens was not transferred to China. This represents a real source of concern.
Biometric identification in publicly accessible spaces means the end of anonymity in these places. Without privacy, citizens and visitors risk having their every move tracked and recorded. In China, the social rating system relies heavily on biometric data collected through ubiquitous surveillance cameras installed in public places. With the increasing use of intrusive Chinese technologies, including these surveillance cameras (“24/7 recording cameras with advanced optics detecting faces and objects” (camera models: IPC6625-Z30 and IPC6225-VRZ -ES)) and the accompanying facial recognition software (“All-in-One Real-Time Intelligent Video Surveillance System (VCN3020 System)), we are one step closer to the reality experienced by millions of Chinese citizens – but right here in Europe.
Citizens across Europe stood up and took note of the numerous protests against the granting of an exploration license to the Anglo-Australian mining company Rio Tinto and against the planned construction of a lithium mine in Loznica.
These protests were peaceful and citizen-led, aimed at raising awareness of the devastating environmental impact that lithium mining would have on the local region of western Serbia. Yet we now understand that protesters were charged with crimes in the weeks following the demonstrations. These are ordinary citizens protesting for their right to breathe clean air and protect the environment in which they live.
It is unclear how the personal data of those present was obtained, but protesters did not report being personally asked for their ID or personal information. What is clear is that if biometric surveillance cameras were used to identify protesters, not only the human rights of Serbian citizens were violated, but also the law.
Citizens, civil society and politicians across Europe have taken a stand against recent attempts to introduce mass biometric surveillance in the recently withdrawn Home Affairs Bill. The bill’s provisions would have allowed police to use biometric technologies to indiscriminately identify people in Serbia, without any prior consent. Despite attempts to introduce these measures in a non-transparent manner, this law was ultimately withdrawn thanks to pressure from both Serbia and Europe.
In just the past few months, we have seen the tremendous power of citizen movements to protest measures that are not in the best interests of the Serbian people. Regarding the state of surveillance in Serbia, we have the power to stop these invasive biometric technologies and protect our fundamental rights. Mass surveillance violates some of our most fundamental human rights, including freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and the right to privacy.
Until we succeed in imposing a Europe-wide ban on the use of biometric mass surveillance, we must demand more transparency regarding the acquisition and use of these technologies.
At last count, at least 15 European countries have experimented with invasive biometric mass surveillance technologies, but the Safe City project puts Belgrade at risk of becoming Europe’s surveillance capital. This Data Privacy Day, let’s make sure our data is protected and that intrusive facial recognition technologies are not deployed anywhere in Europe.
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