At 5 AM on a cold winter morning in 2022, a bunch of migrants have been making ready an inflatable boat to cross the Evros River that types the land border separating Turkey and Greece. After battling the robust present, they managed to achieve EU soil and conceal within the thick vegetation close to the river financial institution – unaware that that they had been underneath fixed Greek surveillance lengthy earlier than that they had even left Turkish soil.
Shortly after the group emerged from their hiding spot, they have been ambushed by a particular unit of the Greek police dispatched there after an alert from the Automated Border Surveillance System that Athens has put in and is constantly upgrading within the area.
Now masking a lot of the border described by European Fee president Ursula von der Leyen as Europe’s “protect”, this method can look deep into Turkish territory, boasting a variety of as much as 15 km, considerably enhancing pre-frontier surveillance for Greece and the EU.
The incident, detailed in a police document obtained throughout this investigation, illustrates Greece’s and Europe’s rising reliance on know-how to safe their borders and curb irregular migration.
The arsenal at Europe’s disposal contains synthetic intelligence (AI) programs, drones, thermal cameras, dialect detectors, knowledge cellphone extraction and complicated surveillance networks. Relying on the nation utilizing them, the goal of deploying these superior and sometimes expensive programs is to assist forestall migrant arrivals, scrutinise asylum claims and disrupt smuggling networks.
Attention-grabbing article?
It was made potential by Voxeurop’s group. Excessive-quality reporting and translation comes at a price. To proceed producing unbiased journalism, we want your help.
Proponents argue that they’re efficient, present security and will be even life-saving, serving to for instance find individuals in misery faster than any border patrol ever might; critics counter that they’re stuffed with authorized and ethical pitfalls, undermining human rights, limiting entry to asylum, infringing on migrants’ privateness, and can be utilized to facilitate collective expulsions – a follow that has been extensively documented and was lately described by the European Courtroom of Human Rights as “systematic”.
Greece: a wise borders chief
As a frontline EU state bordering Turkey, the nation internet hosting the world’s largest refugee inhabitants, Greece is spearheading Europe’s efforts to implement AI and different tech options in border management.
Greece has secured €1.6 billion from the EU’s Dwelling Affairs funds for 2021-2027. Athens will make investments closely in border safety and surveillance, together with in AI-based programs, whereas a really small chunk of those funds is earmarked for bettering search-and-rescue capacities, arguably reflecting the place European priorities lie.
One flagship EU-funded challenge known as REACTION. AI-powered drones and automobiles will monitor borders in real-time, detect “threats” earlier than they attain the border, and combine with programs like EUROSUR, the EU’s border surveillance system. In a promotional video of the challenge, a swarm of drones will be seen autonomously figuring out and monitoring individuals of curiosity.
Justifying the drive for border tech, a senior Greek authorities supply mentioned that “arrivals of greater than 30,000 a 12 months are difficult, so we’ve got to concentrate on stopping prison smugglers from pushing migrants into Greece any means we are able to.”
This casual goal was dwarfed, nevertheless, in 2024, when greater than 62,000 new migrant arrivals have been recorded – double the restrict thought of tolerable by Athens, and 40% larger in comparison with the earlier 12 months. Authorities officers anticipate migratory pressures to proceed in 2025.
This “aggravated interval” for migration was the principle cause Greece’s migration ministry declined to supply any solutions or feedback for this investigation on “delicate operational points that concern the safety of the nation.”
Sleepless watchers
In late 2024, at a gathering of legislation enforcement officers from throughout the bloc in Warsaw, the place the EU’s border company Frontex is headquartered, members lauded Greece’s success in maintaining migrant arrivals on the Evros land border underneath management. This success was largely attributed to the efficient use of what members referred to as “technical boundaries”, individuals acquainted with the conferences recounted.
These boundaries embrace a 5-meter-tall metal fence, already masking a considerable a part of the 192-km land border with Turkey. The fence, which is deliberate to increase, probably with EU funding that had been beforehand denied to Athens, is augmented by a classy array of applied sciences, together with AI-equipped drones, ubiquitous cameras, and rapid-response groups.
Tech within the service of thwarting migrant arrivals was the focus of an in depth report printed in late 2024 by BVMN, an unbiased community of NGOs that monitor human rights violations at exterior EU borders. The report describes Evros as a “technological testing floor” for Europe.
The borderline, together with the watchtowers and surveillance antennas dotting the Evros panorama, have been lately mapped for the primary time by the analysis group Forensis utilizing satellite tv for pc imagery, public tenders, and open supply materials.
Digicam feeds are relayed to monitoring hubs close to border cities, the place officers sit behind wood desks surrounded by screens, watching almost each inch of the border and pre-frontier areas.
When drones or cameras detect exercise, an alarm is triggered. Greek legislation enforcement will then usually alert their Turkish counterparts, sharing coordinates primarily based on shared maps, in response to descriptions of the process by safety officers. Turkish authorities usually reply, whereas Greek patrols step in after they don’t.
Any such bilateral cooperation, which additionally contains common in-person conferences between senior Greek and Turkish officers, was confirmed each by Greek and Turkish sources. In accordance with official knowledge, Turkey apprehended greater than 225,000 migrants in 2024, with 1000’s picked up close to the border with Greece.
Erosion of the suitable to asylum
Pre-frontier screening capabilities increase issues. These programs not solely make crossing the Evros more durable, however can doubtlessly forestall individuals looking for worldwide safety from even coming near the river.
Frontex’s Elementary Rights Officer, Jonas Grimheden, for instance, warned in an interview that whereas these applied sciences could make border administration extra environment friendly, they could additionally forestall individuals from exercising their proper to hunt asylum. This proper is assured each by Greek and EU legislation.
Greece is meant to copy the Evros mannequin at its northern borders with North Macedonia and Albania, once more with EU funding secured. A €48 million challenge underneath the EU’s 2021-2027 Migration and Dwelling Affairs Fund envisions the set up of automated surveillance programs at these two borders.
This time, nevertheless, the objective can be to forestall migrants from shifting alongside the Balkan route in the direction of Western Europe, in what is named “secondary motion”. Vacation spot international locations like Germany have been involved about secondary migration, elevating the difficulty again and again, together with publicly and on the highest degree.
Greece has been historically reluctant to use the identical degree of vigilance at exit as in entry factors, police officers mentioned, a deliberate coverage that has been well-documented.
A tech bonanza within the Aegean
In Greece, the extra porous sea border with Turkey that accounted for most irregular border crossings within the EU final 12 months, can be changing into more and more reliant on tech to discourage irregular crossings.
As in Evros, Greek authorities use radar programs and thermal cameras for the early detection of vessels earlier than they depart Turkish waters. In a written response, the Hellenic Coast Guard defined that after suspicious vessels are detected, Greek authorities sometimes notify their Turkish counterparts asking them to forestall them from getting into Greek territorial waters.
These superior programs embrace long- and short-range radars that present real-time knowledge to patrol items, thermal imaging and excessive decision optical cameras that enable the monitoring and detection of vessels 24/7, in addition to unmanned aerial automobiles (UAVs) and drones outfitted with high-definition cameras and monitoring programs which give aerial surveillance, particularly over tough to entry areas and the open sea.
Tech on the sea border nonetheless performs, nevertheless, a relatively minor position, in response to a senior authorities official with direct information of the state of affairs, however the objective is for this to alter quickly. Presently no programs are primarily based on AI, however the official mentioned that Athens plans to enhance this with new EU-funded programs and gear.
The Coast Guard and police are certainly upgrading their capabilities with substantial EU funding. Greater than €25 million has been allotted for cellular surveillance applied sciences, together with thermal cameras and heartbeat detectors, whereas €35.4 million is earmarked for digital border surveillance programs. Investments additionally embrace unmanned helicopters, SUVs outfitted with thermal cameras, and maritime surveillance instruments.
On prime of that, the Greek Defence Ministry has earmarked €21 million for the procurement of sea border surveillance programs, of which €4 million can be spent on the acquisition of drones. With authorized pathways to asylum nonetheless restricted and preventive tech amplified, migrants are more and more turning to well-armed smugglers utilizing speedboats, vulnerable to resorting to violence and harmful manoeuvres to evade apprehension, making an already harmful journey much more perilous.
The Worldwide Group for Migration has recorded 173 lifeless and lacking migrants within the Japanese Mediterranean in 2024, together with 27 kids.
As for individuals who do handle to achieve the Greek islands, they usually encounter one other sort of border tech: refined surveillance programs.
Island panopticons
Excessive safety, drones, and AI programs have been hailed as progressive and important options of the barb-wired, EU-funded camp in Samos.
These programs can observe motion, determine people, and lock down sections of the camp with minimal human intervention. “The camp is designed to guard these exterior, not inside it,” an individual acquainted with the camp’s operations mentioned.
A number of officers disputed this attitude.
“Safety of [privacy] is vital, however safety can be a grave situation. The brand new camps are unfairly criticised, they supply security. There is no such thing as a extra violence,” a former senior migration official countered, juxtaposing the state of affairs on the new camp in Samos to the “lawless state of affairs” that preceded its opening.
Nonetheless, sources near the asylum course of advised that the information collected might even affect asylum choices, with behaviour flagged by the surveillance programs doubtlessly used as grounds for rejection.
Asylum officers are unbiased in response to Greek legislation, however periodically obtain “pointers” from central authorities, which leaves room to extra advert hoc practices, the identical sources mentioned.
The Samos camp boasts two flagship surveillance programs, meant to function fashions for related amenities throughout Greece: Hyperion and Centaur. The previous controls entry and exit utilizing biometrics, whereas the latter handles digital and bodily safety in and across the facility utilizing AI-powered movement evaluation cameras and drones managed by the Migration Ministry.
Each programs have confronted scrutiny. In April 2024, Greece’s Knowledge Safety Authority (DPA) imposed a document high-quality of 175,000 euros on the Migration Ministry for “critical shortcomings” relating to compliance with GDPR guidelines.
Christos Kalloniatis, a professor on the College of the Aegean and a member of Hellenic DPA’s board, mentioned the Ministry has since responded to the authority’s observations and the federal government’s responses are at the moment underneath evaluation.
Kalloniatis warned that each system is vulnerable to bias and it’s as much as people to get rid of such dangers. “Bias exists if the individuals operating these programs are relying solely on them, fairly than utilizing them as instruments that assist them decide.”
He added that stopping and addressing violence is welcome, however it’s a downside if asylum seekers, who discover themselves in a state of affairs of clear imbalance of energy, aren’t adequately knowledgeable about their rights, what occurs to their knowledge, who has entry to it and why, and don’t give their knowledgeable consent.
Knowledge privateness issues
What’s worrying Kalloniatis is already a actuality on the bottom. Migrants’ telephones are sometimes confiscated, passwords obtained, and private knowledge extracted. In some instances, specialised software program is used; in others, officers merely {photograph} the contents on the screens of unlocked telephones.
The Greek Police didn’t reply to requests for remark for this investigation.
The Hellenic Coast Guard mentioned it will possibly and does confiscate migrants’ telephones, however officers observe “strict authorized procedures” underneath judicial supervision, and solely as a part of wider prison investigations similar to human trafficking or smuggling, because the telephones might comprise very important details about trafficking networks.
This isn’t all the time the case nevertheless. Three younger Syrian asylum seekers interviewed in Samos mentioned that their telephones, in addition to these of everybody they knew, had been seized by the authorities and returned later with out clarification or any suspicion of them being concerned in prison actions. They have been by no means instructed why their telephones had been taken, didn’t signal any consent types, and weren’t instructed when their units may be returned.
Safety sources confirmed that confiscations do happen usually with out judicial oversight or correct documentation.
The info extracted from telephones is used not solely in prison proceedings, but in addition in threat assessments and reviews by safety companies, such because the Greek police, Frontex and Interpol. “The info evaluation is aimed toward aiding authorities in figuring out people, uncovering prison networks, and making certain public order and safety”, the Coast Guard mentioned.
We reviewed three reviews primarily based on extracted cellphone knowledge. One, authored by Frontex, included info and footage from social media and texts from messaging apps discovered on migrants’ telephones to map smuggling networks. A second report, this time by the Greek police, included geolocation knowledge, message exchanges with facilitators, and pictures of tickets and itineraries. The third mentioned migrants had provided their passwords “voluntarily”.
Greek legislation enforcement officers mentioned that even personal pictures and different knowledge are typically accessed. Even when migrants had them deleted from their bodily units, they’re typically nonetheless accessible from the cloud.
Regulation enforcement officers additionally disclosed the casual sharing of knowledge on migrants with counterparts from non-EU international locations, bypassing the EU’s GDPR – touted because the hardest privateness and safety legislation on the planet – and different authorized restrictions. That is completed via casual channels like messaging apps between border guards who need to expedite the sharing of knowledge, a course of described as too time-consuming when correct channels are used.
*Names have been modified.
👉 Unique article on Solomon
🤝 This investigation was supported by grants from the Investigative Journalism for Europe Fund, Journalismfund Europe and Netzwerk Recherche. This text is printed inside the Come Collectively collaborative challenge
