Legal and Ethical Implications of Border Technologies and Human Rights with Petra Molnar - Ep. 55

welcome litigation Nation I'm your host Jack sanker along with my co-host denessa Watkins today we're joined by a very special guest Miss Petra molar who's a lawyer an anthropologist specializing in migration and human rights Petra has been working in this space since the mid 2000s as a community organizer uh her work as we'll get into it has taking her to conflict areas and militarized spaces in Jordan Turkey Greece the Philippines uh Palestine and Israel Kenya Colombia and on the US Mexico border and all over Europe U she's currently the associate director of the refugee law Lab at York University and faculty associate at the merkman Klein Center for internet and Society at Harvard University you could find her publish in the New York Times the guardian Al jazer the transnational Institute and all over the Internet uh she joins us today to talk about policy and law of border security migration immigration surveillance which she wrote about brilliantly in her new book The Walls Have Eyes surviving migration in the age of artificial intelligence Petra welcome to the show thanks so much for having me it's a real pleasure to be here with you today um I have a whole section here that's kind of like your bio bullet points of who you are and everything else but I think it would probably be best if you just summarized um who you are what your background is and why it is that writing on this topic yeah sure I'd be happy to um so like like you said I'm a lawyer and an anthropologist by training but I'm not a technologist and about six years ago I fell into this area of trying to understand how new technologies are impacting the way that people are moving and Crossing Borders um and it's taken me on a bit of a wild ride all around the world and culminated in the publication of my first book called The Walls of eyes surviving migration in the age of AR arcial intelligence which tries to tell This Global story of how Ai and surveillance and drones and all sorts of other experimental projects are playing out across the world's borders did you get into the technology aspect of it just because of your personal experiences and and seeing you know what was out there and what was being used and maybe things that we mainstream don't hear about yeah kind of you know so I uh am a practicing lawyer although I don't take too many cases anymore um but back then I was you know doing more I guess you could call it kind of traditional issues you know things like gender-based violence um you know uh other types of issues like immigration detention uh but not technology and it was really as a result of an event that we held at work um kind of on technology and power trying to understand how um new projects that are kind of being introduced are exacerbating racism discrimination um and just terrible experiences that people are having and then I started asking questions like what is happening on the immigration side you know but again I'm I'm not a tech person by training and back then my knowledge of these things was really limited we're talking like Wikipedia level knowledge of what's an algorithm and I found it quite intimidating because sometimes I think the technology space can be a bit difficult to to penetrate but I saw time and again that these new kind of projects and Technologies were being introduced without really having a conversation about their human rights impact what it's doing to real people and from a legal perspective that was really troubling for me and so yeah it was a bit of a happy accident I suppose um but it taken me um yeah on this on this journey of of trying to understand this interplay and denessa was asking about you know your like quote unquote personal experiences and I think it's like well worth highlighting here that um maybe unlike uh some academic work here this book and what you had to do to to get this book together involved quite a lot of like literal boots on the ground um going to hotly contested sometimes militarized spaces uh making you know I I don't know I don't know what you want to call yourself in this scenario but I I would say um investigative reporting to some extent uh and and actually kind of getting your hands dirty uh quite literally and so if you wouldn't mind just kind of giving the audience a taste for where you were uh physically uh and and what you kind of the spaces you were in as you were putting together would eventually turn out to become this book this is I think where the kind of anthropology hat comes in this commitment of trying to work from a grounded perspective so being present in spaces where um these Technologies are playing out and again it kind of happened organically but as I was expanding my own understanding of how new technologies are being used at the border um I went from Canada to different parts of Europe um I ended up living in Greece for almost 3 years because it was one of the kind of key sites of technological experimentation uh at the border but then also because I've always worked from a uh kind of a comparative perspective um I find comparison to be a very very useful tool of analysis and so being able to say okay well this is happening uh along the fringes of Europe but what is happening at the US Mexico border what's happening in East Africa what's happening in occupied Palestinian territories all of these spaces speak to one another um but you're right I mean it is kind of ultimately coming from a commitment of being present in these spaces because there's only so much you can do from the Ivory Tower or an office somewhere um right and I think it's perhaps also motivated by the fact that I you know have my own migration story that has motivated I think perhaps my uh work in this area more generally um but also the commitment to try and tell complex stories from a a human perspect perspective because I really didn't want to write an academic book that would be sitting on a shelf somewhere that was just impenetrable and and and really heavily written this is meant more as a a story to be able to illustrate um some of the impacts of of this technology on real people yeah and that's what I I mean I flew through your book so I I think that's great about the walls have eyes as you kind of start out with this personal story of something you experienced uh people you met along the way their struggles you know Shar ing their perspective and then describe the the technologies that are being used um really I don't unfairly um illegally I would say even though maybe the laws aren't in place yet but um it it puts a real uh humanization to uh what like you said could otherwise just be kind of a a stale talk about this Technologies but once you start meeting these players and the people that you came into contact with and how it affects their lives um yeah it's a page Turner I will say that um but also it it made me uh feel like wow I my head's been buried under the sand to not realize um you know how how these things are being used um so can't say enough good things about the book I've already shared it with all of my family so I actually my mother-in-law is in Arizona and she had no idea about the the robot dogs that are being deployed there um can you discuss a little bit about that yeah for sure I think I think that's that's probably one of the more visceral examples in the book um so when I first went to Arizona as again one of these spaces where technological experimentation intersects with the Border I also had no idea that it was going to be kind of one of these flash points for again these really high-risk technologies that are essentially something that you might see on you know a Sci-Fi episode of like the Black Mirror or some other show you know that listen literally right um and so what when Arizona I started working with um some search and rescue groups that are there uh to assist people who are crossing the desert you know because the Sonora Desert is such a beautiful place but it's also a very deadly deadly place and people lose their lives as they're making the journeys um to try and claim Asylum and then you have these search and rescue groups that are often also sometimes made up of you know 70 and 80 year olds who instead of relaxing on a sunlounger are going to drop water in the desert or show up for for people in these really kind ways and I uh spent some time with one particular group called The Battalion search and rescue and we went and Tred into the Sonora Desert to visit a memorial site of uh Mr Alvarado who was a young husband and father who essentially died um mayor kilometers away from a major highway as a result of these kind of draconian surveillance technologies that are pushing people more and more into the desert but right around that time in probably one of the most surreal moments of my career and now that you've read the book I think you've probably seen I've had many of such moments it was right around the time that we were literally on the SS of the Sonora the that the Department of Homeland Security announced that they would be augmenting their kind of migration management Arsenal with Robo doogs which are essentially a quadruped military grade technology that is autonomous and that would be joining this arsenal of of Border enforcement Tech and chasing people like Mr Alvarado through the desert I mean this is some of the sharpest kind of manifestations of the technologies that that I explore in the book but it's by no means the the only Tech that's also used at the border you know I mean especially the US Mexico territory is one where so much technological experimentation occurs whether it's like AI towers that are dotted throughout the Sonora different surveillance equipment um license plate readers it creates this surveillance Dragnet that people are increasingly caught in the term that that we're using here which I find so interesting um but it's worth connecting the dots on uh technological experimentation um it's implied and I think I mean it's also true but it's implied that uh the different policies Technologies um or just ways of doing things are being tried out um on uh the borders not just the United States uh Mexico border um but you get into a lot of detail places all over the world um uh but the the term you know experiment is implying that you know they're going to take certain elements of those things that either work or don't work and then will broadly end up being applied towards domestic populations right this is um uh I think it's fal's Boomerang I don't know if you know yeah it's it's exactly that which is you know a police uh policing tactics or um technologies that will work against a you know population abroad will inevitably find its way back to the domestic population and um and you give examples in the book uh the the drones that are being deployed on the southern border of the United States um where they're not being used by like Department of Homeland Security or um whatever other agencies are using them they're being lent to local law enforcement for example um many many things like that so I I think it's so interesting because if you're coming from this or looking at this kind of you know border security thing which is like obviously very political issue from whatever perspective you want to come at it from um I think it it extremely politically charged uh but it's so interesting because um you ought to care uh you should care what's happening down there for from whatever perspective you're approaching it from and anyone who has this sort of you know maybe Viewpoint that's common on the right of like big government surveillance and tracking and all those things you don't have to be conspiratorial it's like literally happening and and this is the you know the pro account for it right yeah exactly exactly and you know even the robo dogs that we were just talking about right a year after they were announced at the US Mexico border the New York City Police Department held a press conference and proudly announced that they wanted to use Robo doogs on the streets of New York to qu to quote keep New York safe and one was even painted white with black spots on it like a Dalmatian I mean again it's this kind of normalization of tech that starts at the border and then bleeds over into other facets of of public life so I think it's it's kind of a two-fold thing here right like I think it's really important to pay attention to what happens at the border because there are spaces that are you know very opaque very discretionary difficult to understand why certain decisions get made creates This Kind of Perfect Proving Ground or testing ground for experimentation that maybe at first blush wouldn't be allowed in other spaces but then what happens is over time it becomes normalized and then starts proliferating in into into other facets whether that is again the robo doogs on on New York streets or the surveillance of protesters or even sports fans um there are now conversations about using facial recognition in sports stadiums for example right so again it is this normalization of tech that we really need to pay attention to well I was gonna say a couple shows ago uh on our podcast we were talking about um biometric data and uh recent laws that were passed uh regarding that or that are being used more frequently in the US um to try to protect people from the collection of that type of data or the use of it or how it's stored um so I I did think it was interesting I guess and not surprising that um the United Nations High Commissioner for refugees so unhcr that they're collecting that biometric data in Kenya and then it brings this question of well okay so they have this huge database now who has access to it I saw that it's being shared with the US even if those refugees aren't making it here um you mentioned that it's vulnerable to hacking uh I mean data is King now so yeah once we have all of this information um very sensitive information about people who has access to it how is it protected uh why is it being shared you know for what purposes because the people who whose data is being collected they don't have any say in that um so yeah what aside from or if you want to talk about Kenya but I'm sure that there are other places where this is happening and and you know what are the effects of that yeah and thanks for bringing that up Tessa because that's kind of the underlying logic sometimes the fact that data is the new oil right and we need more and more data to power these Technologies of surveillance and Automation and just you know this kind of incursion of tech in our daily life it cannot be done without data but then it also is important to ask who is the data subject and who can opt out from being part of these massive databases because ultimately you know the conversation I think that we're having is about technology but it's actually about power and it's also about the opportunity to say no I don't want to be part of this um and when we're talking about spaces like refugee camps that is where there's a huge power differential and that's even inherent in the way that International organizations like the United Nations um is operating in in a pretty problematic way because they've also normalized biometric data and Iris scanning for example in refugee camps in Jordan instead of people using an identity card they now have their eyes scanned and then they get their weekly food rations like At first BL that sounds good um because of course you want to be able to disperse humanitarian uh support quickly and efficiently but how do people actually feel about that right well I mean how would we feel if we went into I don't know um a grocery store and all of a sudden it was like well we have to SC scan your irises before you can come in the people would be up in arms but when that actually happens in a refugee camp those discussions are not being had and you know I've spoken with people who say well I feel uncomfortable about this but if I don't get my irises scanned I don't eat that week that's not really free and informed consent right it really breaks down along these lines of of just huge power differentials and also it reduces people to to data points um rather than actually seeing their their full humanity and one last thing I will say is and you already alluded to it is the vast kind of Human Rights impact of what happens when there are data breaches or when really sensitive information is inappropriately stored or shared and this has already happened the UN collected a bunch of information on rohinga refugees who were escaping Myanmar ended up in Bangladesh have' been living there for many years now they collected all this information and then inadvertently shared it with Myanmar the government that the refugees were fleeing from I mean that's a huge breach right huge and yet how can this happen um we really need a lot more conversations about just why is even this data being collected in the first place and why is it being shared and stored in these inappropriate ways I find so many of the the kind of like I I don't want to you know take a strong political position on this but there's so many of like the talking points from either side you want to come at here um uh and the kind of conspiratorial maybe you know tinfoil hat stuff that people often will talk about and you kind of brush off um until but no one's actually like pointing the finger at the right thing when they kind of say this and so the um 2017 uh extreme vetting initiative that you discuss in the book from from uh from which ice I I believe is still using or I don't know if they it's been halted or not um but which involves uh assessment of someone's you know personal social media um like Risk profiles that's based on is I understand it a completely opaque algorithm for which we have no idea what or very little idea what the inputs are um a lot of that information is is classified as something you mentioned in the book um travel records of course and the the goal of this you know giant rub Goldberg machine of social assessment of someone is you know to determine whether that person would quote be positively contributing would be a positively contributing member of society and to predict whether they intend to commit criminal terrorist acts after entering the community or entering the country unquote and that is to me I mean that is so you know Minority Report um that is you know for people that bang their fists on the table about like you know the Chinese social credit score or whatever that that's kind of exactly what this is here um and for so it's it's so interesting because folks that may otherwise not be inclined to be sympathetic towards um towards the the things are happening to migrants at the border who you know haven't asked for it and don't deserve it um ought to care right because of the way that you know these are the big government surveillance and uh things that you know they they say that they're worried about um it's already happening it's just happening to a population that no one cares about yeah and that's exactly it and it doesn't just stay there right like just because things are tested out at the border then they become normalized and then you know it opens up the the Ambit much much more broadly and I think the examples that that you're bringing up Jack are really quite disturbing right because they are forward-looking it is really like a Minority Report situation where like really are we comfortable with governments making predictions about our behavior in the future and based on what right oftentimes we don't even know what the parameters are I mean the extreme vetting initiative is perhaps the most extreme example of this but other jurisdictions have done the same New Zealand for example introduced um kind of a pilot project project where they wanted to root Out quote unquote likely troublemakers what does that even mean right what grounds will that break down upon right I mean we can all imagine how incredibly racist and discriminatory this can be right and I think again as we are seeing a shift to the right um all across the world and and having these really heightened conversations about migration about security about the environment right and the fact that many people are going to be migrating as a result of environmental degradation if we normalize um the kind of Predictive Technologies chances are that we're going to be seeing more and more of them well I was wondering too I mean we saw in the US particularly like after 911 I think more Americans were open to the idea of higher security and more surveillance because we felt you know we had been attacked okay now we're okay maybe with the government monitoring more uh did we see something like that with covid-19 as well where suddenly everyone kind of feels uh vulnerable and so maybe people are more open to and I don't mean obviously people at the border but I mean you know in domestic uh areas are people more open to these technologies that are intrusive uh simply because they feel more vulnerable yeah absolutely you know and and there's been others who've been doing really amazing work kind of tracking this vulnerability and and how it's also kind of weaponized against people in crisis right because of course I mean the covid-19 pandemic was and is a global health crisis right and so it it makes sense that people who are all of us experiencing this kind of unprecedented event um that maybe you know psychologically there's a predisposition to grasp its straws and say well you know whatever we can get to make the world better we are going to do that but it actually there was a lot of laws not even just surveillance but like a lot of um you know stretching of of what normally people would not be comfortable with but again because we were in a massive crisis it normalized the ability of the state to say well we're going to incur or create incursions on people's you know freedom of movement right um people's freedom of expression um data Gathering indiscriminately and and all of that and a lot of that those vestages have remained with us right and I think that's the concern whenever we are operating from a crisis mentality unfortunately you know Scholars have for decades centuries been kind of um trying to raise alarms about this that crisis actually breeds the normalization of more and more control right and unfortunately we are seeing um a time that is informed by crisis thinking right whether it's the environment or political crisis or just the widening um you know kind of Divisions between groups um I think the concern is that again technology is a lens through which to understand power and who is around the table when we innovate on and why and who gets to decide like yes we need more surveillance or we need more robo dogs or we need more data versus actually thinking about well how can we use technology to improve the lives of people um there's kind of that other side to it too but again it always breaks down along the lines of power and privilege um especially in times of Crisis speaking of covid-19 you WR about in your book the um some of the lockdowns that were in place in uh in European countries I mean I think also applicable here but um in Greece for example uh the kind of lockdown procedures and protocols that were in place were um the government there took advantage of those to keep uh migrants for example in um camps uh for much longer than they would have been under normal circumstances and again that to me is just it just Echoes so loudly of the like conspiratorial you know if you're a member in the United States like they're going to use covid to put us all in camps you know kind of crazy talk um that you you know ignore and then here we are here's like a a you know quote unquote Western Country with which um kind of did that and uh and it's you know it kind of happened there it's the you know orwellian um uh uh stuff that you know a certain political class pundants in this country you know make their money talking about all the time um but because it happens to a group of people that you know no one seems to uh worry about too much um it's completely you know like I learned this reading your book um and you would think that folks that were concerned about that type of thing would have learned this when it happened two or three years ago and uh and it just it flies completely under the radar just due to really the identity of those who are affected by it the most um and it's absolutely fascinating when you kind of think about it um through that lens at least for me yeah and I think there there's a lot of kind of flying under the radar P intended since we're talking about Radars right yeah um that that happens at the border right because again are SP spaces of opacity and also a space of Crisis right and we are seeing this around the world where borders are increasingly becoming militarized um and also difficult to access for human rights monitors like me but also for journalists right um it it again kind of plays into this mentality that the border is this kind of free-for-all where anything can happen um this kind of Frontier Zone of experimentation which has happened for many many years it's just now we have this Tech that also plays into it and that's perhaps where you know I remember denessa you said something early on in our conversation that you know there's not a lot of law right now and that's precisely it um because we don't have a lot of guardrails around just technological experimentation period let alone at the border it exacerbates a lot of the the kind of highrisk projects that are playing out there largely unknown oft times you know people find out about them as a result of some like random investigation or through sheer chance or journalist a piece and all of a sudden you know a new project hits the media but there isn't this kind of commitment to transparency and public accountability when it comes to Tech development generally I would say but especially at the border I was I mean in our in normal society a lawyer is held you know to a certain level of prestige and you get a certain amount of respect from your community but did you find in going to these places that it was the opposite that you are now the enemy seen by some of these um I would would think lawyers would stand right out as no stay away get out of here anyone with a camera anyone with a law degree anyone with the education that would spread the information definitely definitely I mean that was the case in in a variety of the different areas that I've worked in where it was almost almost a liability to say oh I'm a lawyer um you know and but then on the other hand you know I think also when you are a lawyer you of course are aware of of your own rights and also your ability to to kind of do your job depends on you know speaking truth to power so to speak and and asking the the hard questions and so definitely though I I noticed a trend where yeah more as as more borders become militarized and difficult to access um it's no accident that um states don't want people who are human rights monitors or who are journalists kind of poking their nose in there when you know a lot of again that kind of experimentation is happening there without public scrutiny so it's a little bit of a double-edged sword you know I think it definitely helps um to be a lawyer doing this work but sometimes it it can make you be seen as somebody that they definitely don't want there yeah yeah I I had a a friend who did some work in Guantanamo Bay and he said every time he flew down there it was like you know treated nice treated nice he's a gentleman he's in a suit and then as soon as he stepped off the plane and got there it was like he felt like he was one of the inmates like the guards you know didn't want anything to do with him like would put up you know roadblocks every step of the way make him wait hours to talk to his clients those sort of things and I I just would imagine you would encounter the same sort of um I guess arbitrary blockades uh you know when you get to these places yeah definitely and the other the other issue that I have had and it's not just unique to me but I think to a lot of people in this space is trying to also engage with the private sector that's involved in this and I know that's not something we've talked about yet but there are major major player in the development and deployment of this technology because often times States just can't do it themselves Mes in house right like they need to contract out these projects to private companies and and when you go to you know some of the conferences where this technology is being sold and kind of proposed as a solution to these complicated quote unquote societal problems right like oh you're worried about refugees here's a robo doog if you buy this this will solve your problem that's the kind of thinking as soon as they see that you're a lawyer or an academic they don't want to talk to you right because they know that you're there trying to get at the parameters of what they're doing and why and all and so that was definitely something that I was you know I wouldn't say I was surprised by but it was like yet another element because when you're trying to understand this ecosystem and this multi-billion dollar border industrial complex that has grown up around the development of migration management Tech trying to understand how the private sector fits into it and like following the money is very difficult because a lot of it isn't public either and they don't want to talk about it I I am so glad you introduced me to the term uh or to the phrase uh border industrial complex because I could just like mentally like find and replace like do like control F like find and replace like uh military industrial complex and like all of my like skepticism and criticisms of you know like foreign engagements or whatever it is I could just like take those things like cut and paste and now I have a useful framework for thinking about um when I hear something in the news or when I'm just thinking about like the Border uh that's such a use ful uh phrase for me to like conceive of you know everything because I I think today in particular I mean today and this is kind of like broad broadly cross uh political Spectrum like skepticism of you know um foreign engagements I mean you know like the all of a sudden there's a whole cohort of folks that are you know isolationists or whatever you want to call it and so you the term um you know military-industrial complex is so ubiquitous and it's thrown around and people understand inherently now like what that means and so to think to just go oh like the Border industrial complex for me it's just like oh like that just clarifies so much I don't have to do any more thinking from like the ground up like it's the same principles all apply and uh and I like I I remember reading in the book I was like oh that's just I I I understand so much about this now just from flipping that switch in my own brain it's very helpful um oh thanks and you know I I can't take credit for that I mean I would also urge listeners to check out the work of Todd Miller who's an amazing journalist in Arizona he's been working on the border industrial complex stuff for years and I think it's a really helpful framing yeah because again it it centers the kind of capitalism that um is inherent in the way that we develop technology and the fact that there's big money being made at the border just like in military engagements but also at the border well and also in that the the investments in it aren't necessarily um like optimized for you know solving the problem so much as they are optimized for uh prolonging the spending of money so and exactly yeah exactly and I think that's something that we don't really talk about like I I actually think we've kind of lost the plot on a lot of the conversations around migration because you know and I understand that it is a very complex very fraud topic that is very divisive but you know for me as someone who's been working in migration on and off in different ways since you know 2008 all the people that I've met and it's been hundreds right nobody wants to be a refugee right right like the thing is people are forced to move and they're also uh exercising their internationally protected right to do so the right that belongs to me to you to listeners to everyone on the planet right but they are moving because of War because of destabilization oftentimes because of Western action right in in places around the world environment all sorts of reasons so I think we actually need to flip the conversation and say well how do we address the root causes of forced migration like how can we support communities locally and spend even a fraction of this money that is being used in the Border industrial complex like I think it's projected to be around 70 billion dollars in the next couple years I mean even a fraction of that would go so far to try and again deal with the root causes of displacement that's where we need to start because again you know I think we've we've painted people on the move as threats as criminals as people who are are taking advantage of the system somehow versus looking at them as human beings and and something you know migration can happen to all of us right yeah and um you brought up the uh sort of international rights of movement and these things and I you know this is a kind of a lawyer podcast who whose audience is probably largely uh comprised of a lot of other lawyers things like that um two concepts that I I thought may be worth mentioning um non-real and then there is the uh the 1951 Refugee convention um to me seem to be like to the underpinnings of this uh idea of internationally protected um rights of movement and uh we're not I'll speak for Janessa here we're not the type of attorneys that have to deal with this so could you could you tell tell us what those things are and uh and why they're important and to who those those rights or obligations apply to yeah sure so I'll take off my anthropology hat and put my lawyer hat on I'm a reluctant lawyer but still a lawyer um yeah absolutely I mean again I think this is one of the foundational underpinnings of these conversations that we sometimes forget about because um you know it it's again it's a right that is internationally protected and available to all of us the the right to to leave our country of origin if we Face persecution if we Face danger and to seek um support somewhere else and so the 1951 Refugee convention which was drafted after World War II is the foundational International legal document that stipulates that you know there's a legal test that you have to meet there are five categories on which you can claim Refugee protection but you have the ability to leave your country and seek protection elsewhere the non-right form law principle is a norm under international law law that states that you are not allowed to remove someone from your country if they will face persecution in the place that you're removing them to right and this is something that again I think is under threat a lot these days when we talk about practices like push backs or the ways that um you know different states for example are not even allowing people to come on their territory and claim Asylum it's almost like some states want to have it both ways right like they want to say oh we are human rights respecting we have and ratified all these nice pretty International documents and also imported them into our own domestic legislation right like in the United States Canada Europe um but then actually when mon push comes to shave it's like well we're going to derogate from them and and actually create this other regime where people are not even allowed to actually enter um the T territory when those rights kind of kick in but again there is a really foundational strong framework on which to pin responsibility to when we're talking about Asylum law um this is you know an established also line of Juris Prudence that has been with us for for decades now but we are seeing this weakening of these Norms unfortunately these days and Technology plays a part into that because it also kind of disaggregates the border right from its physical location not to get too theoretical but if you can use technology right to push your border either vertically into the skies through drones and different types of surveillance or horizontally through data collection different types of surveillance as well then people are not even making it to your Border in your in the first place right um you're kind of creating this zone of bordering that is much wider and much more difficult to cross and that's no accident there is definitely a weakening of of this regime that we've seen across all these different jurisdictions around the world well I think it's because now uh the promises and obligations that um many of these countries you know purport to support are actually being tested uh maybe for at least in large numbers for the first time in a long time and it's kind of a um do you actually support these ideas or not and it's like push comes to shove actually we don't uh we actually don't support them and um in fact you know one way we can avoid um having to abide by these treaties or laws um whether they're International or domestic uh and avoid incurring obligations to refugees or migrants is to you know for example build a huge wall so that you can't come here and claim them um that seems to be how like that seems to be what was happening in I mean the example that jumped out to me was your time on the uh on the border of um uh Greece and Turkey and this was in the what I can't remember what region it was but it was the part of Greece that's like close to Istanbul and like Bulgaria I don't remember the name of it um but where it's like you know otherwise like a pretty like Agricultural and kind of like um I don't want to say Backwater but certainly a node of power in Greece but all of a sudden is getting you know billions of dollars in fundings to build like AI sensor towers and like um all this uh security technology uh just because it's on the border and it to keep um refugees from coming into to Greece um you know to keep them from coming in because the moment they set foot inside they you know have a claim to certain rights and privileges um whether the country wants to uphold them or not um but at least they have they have that claim on inside so it seems like you know the investment is coming you know to kind of a poor Backwater part of the country that would love to have you know government investment in any other sector um I'm sure but what they get is like you know sensor towers and robot dogs um uh to to keep out you know even uh poorer and more needy people from coming in yeah absolutely but it but what's also interesting right is like so many states use precisely this logic of deterrence of saying well we need more technology we need a wall we need rubo doogs we need AI sensors let's put them in these spaces that are sometimes you know economically disenfranchised right and we're going to prevent people from coming but the thing is it doesn't work right people will just take more dangerous routs to avoid detection and to avoid surveillance this is something that's been documented at the US Mexico border where since the introduction of this so-called smart wall and smart border regime deaths have nearly tripled and because people still continue coming right they're just taking more secur more dangerous routes through the desert which leads to an increased loss of life um but walls don't work right when people are desperate and also again when they're and when they're exercising their internationally protected right to Asylum they're going to find a way and if I can just share an anecdote very recently so when my book came out in May I went to Arizona to share it with some of the search and rescue groups there and we had a really nice time in Tucson and some of the neighboring communities but you know because of my ethnographer hat I was like what's happening at the border let's drive down and see some of this new smart wall stuff that's been introduced and like what's changed since my last visit there about a year ago and so I went down there with journalist Todd Miller and we were just kind of you know standing there shooting the like talking about what's happening and we were in Nogales which is a Border Town that's bisected by the wall so you have no gas in Mexico and no gas in Arizona and we were right by the wall which you can go to you can see it you know there's sometimes um Customs and Border Protection trucks kind of rumbling by there's a a fixed uh integrated kind of um surveillance Tower there you know there's now a new smart track which I guess is going to have all sorts of sensors there whatever and it was a really really hot day and we're kind of standing there sweating really dusty you know and looking over into this area where the tower stands and all of a sudden I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye and we literally saw a young man scale the wall jump down in front of us into the sand right underneath the surveillance Tower Shake himself off and run off into the neighborhood right and to me that is such an example of just like how these surveillance techniques don't work right because people will find a way so instead of spending and wasting all this money on surveillance Tech like let's think about what else we could be doing to improve the Asylum system to give people access to lawyers to support them psychosocially um again to address root causes of migration in the first place rather than investing in surveillance technology that doesn't even work then it also makes me think though like is it about the performance of surveillance right right rather than it actually working it's about the state making us feel like they have it under control and they're like introducing all this Tech and it's not actually working in the first place but maybe that's not the point maybe it's just this theater of the border that we have to pay attention to I mean it's manifestly not working and and if if you're me if you're metric is you know keep keeping let's say people out um well anytime you turn on the news or look on TV you see you see people screaming about how many people are coming in so it's like objectively and manifestly like not manifestly not working if that's the case no matter how much money is being spent um there it's it's still happening so to your point perhaps uh perhaps this technology and everything else is really not a worthwhile investment even if that is your goal which I'm not saying it should be but if it is it's not working they're they're like still coming as you mentioned obviously not surprisingly AI has been all over the news for a bunch of different reasons but um it seems like finally the European Union um uh is paying attention to the dangers of AI I think at a global level we are um people are you know scientists are coming forward and saying you know here's what can happen we need to pay attention to this and how it's being used um but specific to your line of work um you've gone to some of these conferences um I know some of the big ones before the UN what are you seeing with regards to where we're at in trying to regulate artificial intelligence when it comes to the borders yeah it's a really interesting moment when it comes to the kind of governance and Regulatory conversations that are being had and and unfortunately it's been a bit disappointing um in the last little while I want to point specifically to the European Union's AI act which was you know something that that was in the works this big Omnibus piece of lawmaking to try and regulate Ai and it took many years to come to its final form right which which happened um earlier this year and you know there was a group of us in full disclosure some lawyers some Civil Society some academics trying to get members of the European Parliament to think about um the human rights impacts of Border Technologies and call for some amendments to the ACT for example saying you need to ban Predictive Analytics that are used for Border interdictions or push backs right like we were talking about with the non-reform principle something that's actually blatantly illegal under international law or using individualized risk assessments using AI at the border things like that but again given the fact that um migration is a very politically charged issue a lot of these amendments just didn't pass and so now when you actually look at the text of the AI act at first blush it might seem like well you know what's the problem there's a risk Matrix you know that is used to assess different Technologies and Border Tech largely falls under highrisk Technologies so isn't that a good thing well except of course for the legal listeners in the room um it won't be a surprise uh when I say that there are so many ways that again we can derate from this kind of um risk principle that is there because as soon as something becomes designated you know a technology for the use of National Security um issues then the framework doesn't doesn't hold anymore right um and so it just allows for technology to be kind of pushed into the Border space and IM migration under the guise of National Security without the act and its kind of Frameworks applying and not only is this you know a European issue right but the thing is the AI act could have been a real uh push to call for governance and and regulation of Border Technologies globally right because it is the first Regional attempt to govern Ai and it sets the precedent and so if the AI Act is weak um it just there's no incentive for the United States for Canada for Australia to regulate this happened you know with the general data protection regulation the gdpr in the EU right which set a really strong precedent not that it's perfect either but it forced other jurisdictions to think about data protection um in their own you know uh kind of behind closed doors in their in in their own jurisdictions and unfortunately the AI act just will not have that same power and even though there are some conversations happening you know in Canada and and even in the US you know the recently kind of released um executive order on AI that the Biden Administration came out with um was silent on Border Tech it didn't mention borders once right so again it's not a priority and I think it's actually deliberate right because leaving borders as a testing ground is useful for the state because it allows the state to experiment in ways that just won't be able to to do you know when it comes to other other spaces of public life for example would be broadly unconstitutional and uh violating a lot yeah a lot of rules and laws yes um well like you said not just States but um these private companies like you mentioned in um The W have eyes I forget what company it was but setting up in Israel um where you know they've made billions of dollars uh testing different Technologies out on the Palestinian population and then uh sell that technology to you know other other states to use however they they need to um some of the just to because I know we say Ai and it just sounds you know what is AI but I just wanted to give a couple examples that you brought up um which I think we as lay people can understand the issues with um one thing you addressed was the The Voice printing of uh crossmatching somebody's voice with a database of accents um and you raised the issue of you know what dialects can change under different circumstances and that one just hit me because I just came back from my native state of New Hampshire and when we were there my husband was like you're suddenly dropping your RS and you're speaking in a totally different way when you're with your family but it's true the circumstances the subject matter um you know H have you seen some of that uh play out I guess absolutely and you know thanks thanks for bringing that up because that is such a viseral example that I think a lot of people can identify with for me too you know English is not my first language and I find that you know when I'm tired for example my accent comes out more or if I'm in different spaces we code switch right as well and so our accents change um based on who we speak with you know and it's just it's such a shortsighted way of trying to understand just human beings right I mean this voice printing program was used by Germany and its Asylum system for example and it would have somebody speak you know into this program and then it would be assessed and the program would say oh well this person is likely from da province in the south of Syria because of their accent and not Aleppo big city but they said that they're from Aleppo and therefore they must be lying and therefore we need to assess their credibility in a different way right um but I think this is the problem with with AI it's like human beings struggle with the complexities of of just human behavior right it also makes me think of um these other projects that I find really disturbing these pilot projects that basically created a so-called AI lie detector to be tested out at the the border and this AI lie detector uh would use facial recognition or microexpression analysis to be able to make a determination about whether or not someone's telling the truth when they're interacting with this Avatar but you know again you know I used to practice Refugee law and right if there are listeners in in uh who are listening in this might be familiar like I've had people that I was representing um maybe act in a way that a judge was having trouble understanding or they weren't making eye contact with a judge of the opposite gender because of religion because of their experiences maybe because they were nervous right or what about the impact of trauma on memory and the fact that we don't tell stories in a linear way anyway let alone some of the most difficult things that we have to talk about like human decision makers struggle with this and make very problematic assumptions about credibility plausibility truthfulness that is the starting point of any Refugee assessment right and so if human decision makers do that what will a partially or automated system be able to do one that's predicated on a very biased and discriminatory world that we live in already like to me it's just so troubling that we are seeing these AI Technologies whether it's voice printing or AI lie detection or anything in between kind of forced into the migration space without even like have did they talk to a refugee lawyer or a refugee themselves right before piloting some of this like to me this is really disturbing and we can't we can't even you know post talk go and look at uh what those input are uh because in a lot of those cases as you talk about in the book um it's classified it's it's secretive it's and there's no way for anyone to look into it and decide whether this stuff even works and I mean all all of these are operating under the assumption that um when applied correctly this algorithmic decision-making process will be accurate and I think even that is extremely presumptuous um I I tend to be and sometimes the show tends to be a little uh bearish on uh Ai and Tech and things of that matter um and this is the assumption that this stuff like could even work uh is I think a a one that requires a lot of uh faith and I I don't know that it's I mean even even setting aside like the the the biases that are going to be inherent um you know coming from someone who's the biases be that are going to be inherent in setting up these algorithms and these processes and policies I just don't know that they're effective enough for anyone to rely on them um and on these you know important decisions that are being made On the Border in in our immigration process yeah for sure I mean I I think that has to be the starting point right like does this stuff even work some of it is snake oil right like like the AI liot detector was debunked as something that's just not even working but that's the disturbing part like that it's just kind of thought of well this is a good idea to try out at the border again because it's opaque space it's a discretionary space there's not a lot of accountability or oversight or anything like that and so I think it's yeah it's actually about these bigger questions like what kind of world are we building and and are we okay with these Technologies in the first place when we know that a lot of them don't even work not to then mention it's also about the kind of direction of travel so to speak right because they're always aimed at marginalized communities or people who don't have access to the same level of Rights or even legal representation sometimes like we could be using AI to audit immigration decision-making right or to root out racist border guards like that's a choice right but instead the AI is position towards people on the move or refugees or people who you know oftentimes again sometimes don't even know that Ai and automated decision-making is being applied in their case this happened in Canada where lawyers after the fact when they got their hands on some evidence of refused for example Visa applications saw the decisions and they were like hold on a human did not write this right but if again English is your second or third or fourth language and you don't have a lawyer and you have no idea like you're not going to assume that AI is making the decisions right right it's just the whole thing is is really really troubling because so much of it happens behind closed doors and and even lawyers sometimes don't know what's going on that's such a good point if it was so reliable and so trustworthy then then then you could then you would see it applied to uh to audit uh judicial decisions and people that actually like have an opportunity to push back against it you would see applied against them but you don't uh you only see it applied against folks that have you know no ability to challenge it yeah that's right and it's not just even in the immigration space right but we're seeing similar incursions in criminal justice with predictive policing right and sentencing algorithms welfare algorithms Child Protection algorithms it's not an accident right that it happens kind of in marginalized spaces rather than in spaces of power right you're not seeing it against like you're not auditing like prosecutors or judges or things of that sort yeah just the folks that can't defend themselves yeah yeah and on one hand maybe we should be calling for that right but then it also then normalizes Tech in those spaces too which maybe isn't good thing either but those are the people that would probably you know have platforms to to speak out against it um I could just imagine the you know the boardroom of the people that are collecting the data on this and I'm sure the assumption is oh it you know 60% of these people were found lying that means it's working you know like they're that's how they're the data like the goal is to keep people out so if it's doing that then it's working um yeah it's scary well that's exactly it I think you know what you just said is really key it's it's about paying attention to the priorities and whose priorities actually set the stage right and if the priority is exclusion and keeping people out and finding a technical solution to a complex societal problem then there you go this is what kind of drives again this border industrial complex like it's not an accident that we're seeing Robo doogs and AI Li detectors and drones because they're seen as a solution to a problem that has been created by powerful actors who say that people on the move are the problem right right well and I I do love the way that you wrap up your book Petra by um just I just want to quote one part um from one of your last chapters uh people on the Move often have to prove that they are somehow worthy of our respect that line stuck with me and then you end with this um story from Zed Ibraham and he says uh what was our crime that we fled from Syria you know it's it like we we kind of put refugees in this other category but it's so this changed my whole mindset of no that could be me and you know what is my crime fleeing somewhere where my family can get shot in the streets or we don't have food or we don't have access to Medicine um it's you know we need to and I think your book does a good job of this of humanizing these are people people and you know what's being

2024-08-13 20:04

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