The expanded use of mass surveillance technologies in Argentina during the first two years of the Javier Milei administration threatens the rights to privacy, freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association, Amnesty International said in a new report.
The report, Sensing the Surveillance State, demonstrates how, in 2024-2025, Argentina acquired mass surveillance technologies worth at least US$1.2 million, including social media monitoring tools, aerial drones, and facial recognition software from companies with records of mass exploitation. The evidence is based on interviews with 21 people including journalists, pensioners, young people, and human rights activists, analysis of documents, and information obtained through freedom of information (FOI) requests.
The use of this technology is part of a wider global trend of governments ramping up surveillance of their citizens.
Matt Mahmoudi, Amnesty International’s Researcher and Advisor on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights, said:
“Pervasive surveillance is being used against Argentinians in both physical and digital spaces, to devastating effect. These technologies have become an integral part of the infrastructure of state control, targeting dissent, deterring protest movements, and harassing marginalised groups.
“Argentina must demonstrate that it is committed to human rights by ensuring that the use of AI-driven surveillance does not go unchecked and those responsible for human rights abuses perpetuated because of these systems must be held accountable.
“What is happening in Argentina is not unique. Around the world, states engaged in authoritarian practices are ramping up their use of surveillance technologies against human rights defenders, young people, migrants, marginalised and displaced groups, and dissidents.”
Intense monitoring of protest and free speech
Findings concluded that people were reducing participation in protests for fear of being identified and targeted, providing examples of pensioners campaigning in Buenos Aires, who march every Wednesday to the National Congress to protest against the pension cuts.
“We’ve all been fully identified for a long time now… Sometimes as you’re walking you get to [where you were going] and suddenly you see the drone hovering just above your head. Sometimes within six feet. Why so close? Why is it so invasive?”
Ana Tapia, a member of the Insurgent Pensioners (Jubilados Insurgentes) collective
Amnesty is calling on the Argentinian authorities to ban the development, production, sale, and use of remote biometric recognition technologies for mass and targeted discriminatory surveillance, and to ban its unlawful use by all public and private actors. It also calls for appropriate regulatory measures for the procurement, development, production, sale, import and export of surveillance technologies.
