Argentina’s plan to fight crime with AI draws concerns from rights groups

Argentina is launching a new unit tasked with integrating artificial intelligence into crime investigations, including analyzing camera footage with real-time facial recognition, drone surveillance and scanning social media. The announcement, however, is drawing concern from civil rights groups which say that the country already has a track record of spying on its citizens.

The country’s Ministry of Security established the Artificial Intelligence Unit Applied to Security (UIAAS) last week, noting that countries such as the U.S., China, the UK, Israel and others have been pioneering AI technology in government and security forces.

Among the unit’s other tasks will be applying machine learning to analyze historical crime data to predict future crimes, collecting data to create suspect profiles or identify links between different cases as well as scouring the Dark Web and preventing cyberattacks.

“That the advancement of technology, particularly artificial intelligence, represents one of the most relevant socio-technological changes for the general population,” Security Minister Patricia Bullrich states in the resolution.

News of the new AI unit has been met with suspicion in Argentina which is still recovering from multiple spying scandals.

“The opacity in the acquisition and implementation of technologies and the lack of accountability are worrying. In the past, these technologies have been used to profile academics, journalists, politicians and activists,” the Center for Studies on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information (CELE) wrote on its X account.

The digital rights organization, based at the University of Palermo in Buenos Aires, has been campaigning against reintroducing facial recognition for surveillance purposes in the country’s capital.

Buenos Aires suspended the operation of its facial recognition surveillance system in 2022 after a court declared it unconstitutional following cases of wrongful arrests and attempts to track rights activists and journalists. The system, known as the Fugitive Facial Recognition System (SNRP), was installed in 2019 by Danaide S.A., with facial recognition technology reportedly supplied by NtechLab.

In 2020, the Federal Intelligence Agency (AFI) was also found to have collected details on more than 400 journalists as well as academics, businessmen and social organizations participating in World Trade Organization events in Buenos Aires during 2017 and 2018.

“In Buenos Aires, the use of facial recognition technologies is judicially suspended. The intention to use these technologies to identify protesters clearly conflicts with human rights,” CELE notes.

Argentina’s government’s embrace of AI, however, does not seem to be waning. President Javier Milei has been pitching Argentina as “the world’s fourth AI hub” with a hands-off approach to regulation to draw in more tech companies into the country battling with an economic downturn and inflation. In May, his government held high-profile meetings with Google, Apple, Meta as well as OpenAI’s Sam Altman, the founder of Worldcoin.

Article Topics

AI  |  Argentina  |  biometrics  |  facial recognition  |  law enforcement  |  video surveillance