President Javier Milei has created a dedicated security unit that would eventually “predict future crimes,” an announcement that has sparked outrage from human rights campaigners in the country.
Argentina’s right-wing nationalist president Javier Milei announced in early August the creation of an artificial intelligence unit tasked with using “machine learning algorithms” to analyze “historical crime data,” according to The Guardian. The aim is to predict potential crimes and attacks that may occur in the country.
The resolution authorizing the creation of this unit is available on the website of the Official Gazette of the Republic of Argentina. The text, adopted on July 26, provides that the Unit for Artificial Intelligence Applied to Security (UIAAS) will be headed by the director of crime and cyber affairs. Above all, it is part of the Argentine Federal Police and Security Forces. Its mission is to “prevent, detect, investigate and prosecute crimes and their connections through the use of artificial intelligence”.
The Argentine government’s ambitions for this unit appear to be considerable. The president relies on artificial intelligence technology to “monitor social networks, websites, applications, and the Dark-Web, in the framework of the investigation of crimes and the identification of their perpetrators”, according to article 4 of the text. as well as detection of serious security risk situations, within the framework of the national Constitution and the legislation in force”.
Also to conduct investigations, the artificial intelligence used will be able to “identify and compare images from virtual physical media and analyze real-time images from surveillance cameras to detect suspicious activity or identify wanted persons through facial recognition “.
But the Argentine government wants to go further, especially in terms of data collection and processing. The artificial intelligence used in this unit will be based on machine learning. To develop their capabilities, they will be “fed” with a certain amount of data, especially historical data on crimes committed in the country. This should allow them to “predict future crimes and help prevent them”. The approach goes even further, as artificial intelligence will also have access to data from “various sources,” the text continues, “to create profiles of suspects or identify links between different cases.”
Human rights activists are concerned
This resolution is worrying for many of the country’s human rights experts and defenders. Because the points set out in the document do not specify the framework behind this use of artificial intelligence, some fear that certain groups will be subject to mass surveillance. “Wide-scale surveillance affects freedom of expression because it encourages people to self-censor or refrain from sharing their ideas or criticisms if they suspect that everything they comment, publish or share is being monitored by security forces,” he said. Mariela Belski, Executive Director of Amnesty International Argentina.
