CV NEWS FEED // Artificial Intelligence (AI) is being used as spyware that violates freedom and human rights in the name of combating terrorism, according to a United Nations human rights expert.
Fionnuala Ní Aoláin was appointed by the UN as “Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism” in 2017. She presented a report to the United Nations Human Rights Council in March 2023, explaining that some forms of AI violate human rights and freedoms.
“There are many, many positive things to say about new technologies,” Ní Aoláin said at a press conference in March. “They have an enormous capacity to transform lives, they can enhance the full realization of human rights, of human equality and dignity… But at the same time what we’re all seeing are the risks posed by new technological advancements, particularly those technologies that have been used, developed, and applied to counter terrorism or threats.”
Ní Aoláin said she sees consistent trends among states and countries that use AI surveillance to counter terrorism: first, they claim to use AI for security measures in exceptional circumstances only; second, she notes that there is either no or very little protection of human rights in the process; and third, she points out that almost every single government that justifies the use of AI surveillance by claiming “exceptional circumstance” moves to using AI in everyday life, thus taking away various rights and freedoms.
“Sophisticated surveillance technology developed for counter-terrorism and national security purposes has increasingly become a focus of international concern thanks to a spate of revelations demonstrating that such tools are in fact being used to spy on politicians, journalists, human rights activists, lawyers and ordinary citizens with no links to terrorism and who pose no national security threat,” Ní Aoláin said in her report.
Ní Aoláin also said that “abusive practices are hardwired into the counter-terrorism and countering violent extremism arena, precisely because in the absence of an agreed international definition of those phenomena, States define them to advance a variety of interests, few of which engage human rights and the rule of law.”
Examples of AI limiting human rights include using data to violate privacy, limiting the right to freedom of speech, and using drones for surveillance of protests and gatherings, which impacts the right to peaceably assemble.
In France, President Macron recently called for blocks on social media to help stop the spread of riots. However, this call was also denounced as government intervention in free speech rights.
To protect human rights, Ní Aoláin called for a moratorium on the use and advancement of AI until further restrictions and boundaries are put in place.
According to Fox News, however, boundaries are hard to set up when it comes to AI.
“AI is one of the more complex issues we have ever tried to regulate,” Kevin Baragona, founder of program DeepAI, told Fox News Digital. “Based on current governments’ struggle to regulate simpler issues, it’s looking hard to be optimistic we’ll get sensible regulation.”
Fox News said that AI technology “is already being implemented in social, economic, political and military actions, and is integrated into law enforcement, national security, criminal justice and border management systems.”
Despite AI’s current uses, Ní Aoláin is adamant that continued use of AI without government concern and boundaries will lead to the disregarding of human rights.
