surveillance Archives

MEPS Quiz Commission on BIRN-Solomon Report on Greek Surveillance Systems

Posted on January 30, 2023February 23, 2023 by Ivana Jeremic

Members of the European Parliament sent written questions to the European Commission on September 16 about the EU-funded “Centaur” and “Hyperion” surveillance systems deployed in reception areas in Greece. Their questions came after BIRN and Greek investigative outlet Solomon published a joint investigation on this on September 9.

BIRN and Solomon revealed in “Asylum Surveillance Systems Launched in Greece without Data Safeguards” that the “Centaur” and “Hyperion” systems were crafted and initially implemented with funds from the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility – without prior recruitment of a Data Protection Officer at the Ministry of Migration and Asylum, a requirement under the GDPR, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, to ensure adequate oversight.

Nor were mandatory Data Protection Impact Assessments, DPIA, conducted in the design phase.

Tineke Strik, a member of the Group of the Greens, one of the eight MEPs who signed the questions to the Commission, published it yesterday on her Twitter account.

“EU funding of surveillance technology used on migrants in violation of fundamental rights must stop,” Strik said.

The MEPs asked the Commission how much money the EU spent on the two surveillance systems, from which funds this came, and how much funding has been or will be provided for similar systems.

BIRN and Solomon established that the planning of Hyperion and Centaur began in 2020. The Hyperion system monitors movement in and out of state-run asylum camps. Centaur deploys behavioral analysis algorithms and transmits CCTV and drone footage to a control room inside the Greek Ministry of Migration and Asylum.

Humanitarian organisations say the two surveillance systems violate asylum seekers’ fundamental rights and freedoms.

The MEPs said the Greek government was clearly unwilling or unable to conduct an “independent investigation” following allegations of non-compliant expenditure of EU funds in violation of fundamental rights.

“What is the Commission’s assessment of compliance with fundamental rights, and how is the Commission investigating this?” they asked.

“Is the Commission taking action to reject cost reimbursement or retract funding for the Centaur and Hyperion projects? What measures are being taken to prevent future EU-funding of projects in violation of fundamental rights?” they added.

Greek Journalists Testify on Spyware Affair to European Parliament Inquiry

Posted on January 26, 2023February 23, 2023 by BIRD

A group of Greek journalists and government officials on Thursday testified to a European Parliamentary inquiry about the “use of spyware in Greece” – part of a Committee of Inquiry on the use of Pegasus and equivalent spyware in Greece.

The PEGA invited the Greek journalist Thanasis Koukakis, who was targeted with Predator, Stavros Malichoudis, a victim of wire-tapping, and Eliza Triantafillou, an investigative journalist at the Greek media outlet Inside story, to share their experiences as targets and investigators of surveillance.

However, Koukakis was put out of the Investigative Committee after the Greek parliamentary majority voted against a proposal to summon the journalist, the main protagonist of the wiretapping scandal, as a witness.

“The PEGA committee has shown a sincere interest in the case of surveillance in Greece and I am sure that it will exert a lot of pressure to highlight aspects of the case that have not yet been clarified. I think this will become clear when the committee visits Greece,” Koukakis had earlier told BIRN.

Koukakis discovered that his phone had been infected with Predator and that he was being wiretapped as well.

In November 2021, BIRN contributor Malichoudis found that he was among a number of journalists, lawyers dealing with refugee cases, civil servants and anti-vaxxers being wiretapped by the Greek National Intelligence Service, NIS.

Koukakis and Malichoudis both believe they were targeted because of their work.

“We received questions from all MEPs from all parties, who even asked for our opinion in which direction they would move legislatively regarding spyware’s use,” Triantafyllou told BIRN of the hearing.

Triantafyllou, together with her colleague Tasos Telloglou, from Inside Story, revealed the “Predator-gate scandal” in Greece. Triantafyllou stressed that in Greece official investigations into privacy violations seemed to proceed slowly – while investigations into leaks to the media advanced much faster.

She added that spyware provider Intellexa’s activities should be investigated as well.

In the meantime, Ta Nea, a Greek media outlet, wrote that the records of the monitoring of Koukakis and Nikos Androulakis, head of the left-wing PASOK-KINAL, the third-largest party in the Greek parliament, almost fell victim to Predator surveillance software, and have been destroyed by NIS. Androulakis was not invited to the hearing.

When PEGA MEPs asked about the destroyed files, Christos Rammos, president of the independent Hellenic Authority for Communication Security and Privacy, did not deny destruction of the files but noted that the investigation is still ongoing and that he is not allowed to comment. MEPs called for more transparency and faster investigation of the case.

Panos Alexandris, Secretary General of the Greek Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, told the committee: “I heard about a scandal, why is it a scandal? I don’t know if it is just because it is expressed in the press? Because some people believe so? … We [should] wait for the official results [of the Greek probe].”

“The appearance of the two government officials at the hearing was deeply disappointing. They refused to offer explanations, acted as if they don’t recognise their obligation to accountability and at one point even challenged whether there is an actual issue with state surveillance of journalists and politicians in Greece,” Malichoudis noted to BIRN.

“It’s embarrassing for state representatives that MEPs present in the room responded by openly laughing to their statements,” he added.

Another issue that is raising questions is that the Greek parliament’s own Investigative Committee, set up to investigate the state surveillance scandal, is operating in a state of complete secrecy.

Vouliwatch reported that minutes from the meetings will not be made public, while the transcribed texts will not be distributed to the MPs who are members of the committee but kept in a safe place.

Opposition MPs from SYRIZA, PASOK-KINAL and the Communist Party have disagreed with this practice.

A Range of Digital Rights Violations Disrupts the Region

Posted on August 8, 2022January 26, 2023 by Ivana Jeremic

Struggling to collect points and voters ahead of upcoming general elections, politicians and political parties in Bosnia and Herzegovina perpetrated numerous digital rights violations.

In North Macedonia and Hungary, BIRN monitoring recorded a spread of fake news by media as well as by organised troll networks, while various forms of cyberattacks targeted state institutions and the media in Romania, Hungary and Bosnia.

Warmongering and hate speech as campaign tools in Bosnia

On July 26, at a gathering organized by the main Bosniak party, the Party of Democratic Action, SDA, the party leader, Bakir Izetbegović gave an inflammatory speech which drew condemnation from social media users and politicians.

In his speech, the SDA leader recalled Bosnia’s military strength in the event of a “worst-case scenario”, saying: “We’ve counted ourselves and how many hunters we have, and how many young people, and how many instructors we have on drones, and so on. I won’t go further, but just so you know,” Izetbegović said. The video of the speech was posted on the official page of the SDA and widely shared.

Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bakir Izetbegovic meets with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Not Pictured) at the West Bank City of Ramallah, 29 August 2018. Photo: EPA-EFE/ALAA BADARNEH

Many politicians responded by condemning the rhetoric. Milorad Dodik, Serbian member of the state presidency and leader of the main Bosnian Serb party, the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, SNSD, wrote on Twitter: “No one will count us Serbs, not even Muslims, but they should know that there are enough of us.” His statement also sparked hate speech from many social media users as well as warmongering and threatening rhetoric.

The international community’s overseer in Bosnia, the Office of the High Representative, OHR, Christian Schmidt, condemned both Izetbegović speech and Dodik’s reaction.

Women politicians face misogynistic, gender-based insults

As BIRN’s recent research on online gender-based online violence and women’s rights in the Balkans showed, women in politics and women with public profiles are regularly targeted with harassment and gender-based attacks, frequently by their male counterparts, as was demonstrated by BIRN’s monitoring recorded in the second-half of July, particularly in Bosnia.

People participate in a peaceful march on the occasion of International Women’s Day in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 08 March 2022. Photo: EPA-EFE/FEHIM DEMIR

At Sarajevo Canton Assembly, parliamentarians subjected Sabina Ćudić, a representative of Naša stranka (Our Party) and Aleksandra Nikolić, Minister of Science, Higher Education and Youth in Sarajevo Canton, to misogynistic and sexist insults and gender-based attacks.

A recording from the session shows Dževad Poturak, of the Alliance for a Better Future party, SBB, commenting on Nikolić’s dress. Just one day earlier, Ćudić shared a video from the session which shows representatives of the SDA and the Democratic Front, DF, making misogynistic comments about her, mainly about her physical appearance.

Vildana Bešlija, of Naša stranka, after reacting to the misogynistic insults at the session of the assembly, was herself subjected to online harassment. After condemning the sexism and misogyny in the Federation entity parliament and writing about it on social media, Bešlija published the sexist and misogynist insults that she herself had received in the form of online private messages.

After these latest gender-based attacks on female politicians, the Gender Equality Agency of Bosnia issued guidelines on the topic for politicians, parties and legislative bodies in the country.

Cyberattacks against media on rise across region

StirileProTV, one of the most widely read news sites in Romania, was hit with a cyberattack. On July 25, Romania’s National Cybersecurity Directorate warned that trolls are spreading fake news on websites which mimic the visual identity of StirileProTV. This is not only an attack on the media but a danger to the users who access the cloned websites. The Cybersecurity Directorate said cybercriminals are drawing in potential victims to steal their bank card details and personal information under the guise of investments in cryptocurrencies.

Just a few days before, an online portal in Bosnia and Herzegovina was subjected to a hacker attack. The editor-in-chief of Buka, Aleksandar Trifunović, said administrators of the portal’s Facebook page were unable to edit posts, upload or perform any other action on the page as a result. Buka has come under dozens of similar attacks on its webpage, however this seems to be the first attack on its Facebook page.

Similarly, in Hungary, the website of Mandiner.hu, a right-wing, pro-government media outlet, was hacked on July 23. After articles on the portal appeared with a rainbow-coloured background on the day of Budapest Pride, the outlet told readers that this was a result of another hacker attack.

Wrongful processing of citizens’ personal data in Romania, Bosnia

In Romania, millions of vaccinated citizens received WhatsApp and SMS messages warning them about the expiry of their COVID-19 vaccination certificates.

Andrei Baciu, secretary of state in the Health Ministry, debunked this misinformation on Facebook. However, while the false news campaign was concerning in itself, such cases also constitute a violation of citizens’ right to privacy and wrongful processing of personal data, especially sensitive data such as health records.

Two Romanian elderly women rest after getting immunized near the entrance of a Covid-19 Marathon Vaccination For Life II center that is organized at Children Palace venue in Bucharest, Romania, 29 October 2021. Photo: EPA-EFE/ROBERT GHEMENT

Just a month after cybercriminals targeted Romanian taxpayers with malicious emails which mimicked the identity of the National Tax Agency, the country saw a new phishing campaign in the second half of July, once again copycatting the Tax Agency.

The warning came from the tax agency itself after thousands of citizens received emails containing malicious attachments or URLs. It is not known if Lokibot, a Trojan-type malware used in June’s phishing campaign was behind this attack as well.

Meanwhile, in Bosnia, the SDA party carried out public promotion and paid public advertising through the telecom operator BH Telecom, via SMS messages asking users to vote for SDA leader Bakir Izetbegovic in the October elections for the state Presidency. The Central Election Commission of Bosnia on July 22 established that the SDA paid for SMS messages to be sent to thousands of users and fined it 1,000 BAM (around 500 euros).

However, while the Central Elections Commission fined the party for paid political advertising before the official start of the election campaign, such practice also constitutes wrongful processing of citizens’ personal data.

Fake news campaigns in North Macedonia and Hungary; Romania takes action

The second half of July saw the continued spread of false news by different actors across the region.

In North Macedonia, several online news portals published unverified claims stating that former state official Dragi Raskovski, who is now under house arrest pending an ongoing investigation against him, was vacationing in Greece.

As a part of the court procedure, Raskovski’s passport was confiscated by the authorities, but the news portals claimed that he was at a Greek resort after publishing an alleged photo of him and his family. However, the man in the photos has spoken out and publically asked the media not to confuse him with Raskovski.

Meanwhile, an article by a fake news portal is among the four most popular online Hungarian articles on Facebook in July.

Reports suggest that a coordinated troll network may be behind this, as the Facebook page of the portal experienced an unnatural spike in interactions after the war started in Ukraine. According to the analysis, since then the average monthly interactions per follower have skyrocketed, with the current metric being 233 times the previous level.

BIRN monitoring also recorded noteworthy responses by the authorities. On July 21, Romania’s Audiovisual Council withdrew the broadcasting license of News Romania, a television and online media outlet whose editorial management is led by Remus Radoi, a known mobster. The decision was taken after the Council fined the media outlet more than 13 times in the last six months for spreading misinformation about the COVID pandemic as well as for spreading pro-Russian propaganda on the war in Ukraine.

Greek Politician Complains of Targeting by Surveillance Software

Posted on July 27, 2022January 26, 2023 by Ivana Jeremic

Nikos Androulakis, head of PASOK-KINAL, the third-largest party in the Greek parliament, almost fell victim to Predator surveillance software recently, for which reason he has filed an indictment to the Supreme Court, his party said Tuesday.

PASOK-KINAL said Androulakis received a text message with a link on his phone that read: “Let’s look at the matter a little more seriously, man, we have something to win.”

Adroulakis did not click on the link, and his device was not infected.

“It is a case that raises reasonable concerns and questions about what exactly is happening in the political system, in Greek democracy; who are those who are hiding behind and tried to steal personal data and trap the mobile phone of the political leader of the third party of the Greek parliament?” Thanasis Glavinas, director of PASOK-KINAL’s parliamentary group, told BIRN.

In April, two journalists of the investigative media outlet Inside Story, Tasos Telloglou and Eliza Triantafyllou revealed that another journalist, Thanasis Koukakis, was spied on by Predator software for at least three months.

Inside Story revealed that 50 websites of Greek interest were intended to infect the mobile phones of targets who speak Greek, and that targets included both journalists but also ordinary citizens.

The National Transparency Authority, established by the current government, launched an investigation into Koukaki’s case.

But the report said that the government had nothing to do with the surveillance of Koukakis since neither the police nor the National Intelligence Service had purchased or used this or similar spyware.

“The report was delivered to Koukakis last week, three months later, and it appears that some elements were not checked at all,” Telloglou told BIRN.

Inside Story’s newest investigation discloses that the National Transparency Authority did not examine the bank accounts of the companies Koukakis had filed, which appear connected to the security services; it did not examine the activities of the Cypriot companies connected to the software producer or dealing with the Greek state.

“The Greek government has multiple times denied having or using Predator, but has failed so far to find who is using the spyware against targets in Greece, which raises concerns about the protection of democracy and civil rights,” Thodoris Chondrogiannos, reporter at Reporters United, told BIRN.

Reporters United’s investigation into surveillance in Greece revealed that business people with whom Grigoris Dimitriadis, Secretary General and nephew of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, dealt, are directly or indirectly linked to the companies that trade in Predator.

“Following the publication of our investigation, Dimitriadis sent an out-of-court statement against Reporters United, calling the publication a ‘blatant attempt to target and smear me’. However, he did not dispute the links between the companies and businessmen we presented in the investigation,” Chondrogiannos said.

Greek media report that journalists, lawyers, and civil servants have been put under surveillance by the National Intelligence Service; including BIRN contributor Stavros Malihoudis.

On February 24, Solomon media outlet filed an indictment to the Supreme Court about the surveillance of citizens by the National Intelligence Service.

“The political system, together with the authorities and the Greek justice system, must take the initiative and investigate such cases from their origin; we cannot live like this, and unfortunately in Greece, everyone, more or less, has the belief that they are watching us, even if this is not true,” Glavinas said.

Serbia Targets Purchase of Powerful Swedish Facial Recognition Software

Posted on April 12, 2022January 26, 2023 by Ivana Jeremic

Serbia’s interior ministry planned to buy Swedish-made facial recognition software last year and still might despite deep concern over the legality of such technology under the country’s current legislation, BIRN can report.

According to the manufacturer, Griffeye Analyze DI Pro has the capacity to recognise faces based only on the eyes and, under certain conditions, even when the eyes are not visible. Experts say it can also download large amounts of personal data from the internet and then search, sort, cross and process it based on metadata such as GPS coordinates, the time when an image was taken or phone serial numbers.

The software, which Europol has used since 2019, was on a ministry procurement wish-list for the third quarter of 2021. The purchase has not been made and the ministry did not respond to BIRN requests for comment. But Serbia’s Personal Data Protection Commissioner, Milan Marinovic, said police were unlikely to pass up the opportunity to acquire such technology.

“The idea was to get that technology by the end of 2021. I am convinced that the Ministry of Interior has not given up on it,” Marinovic told BIRN. “No police in the world would give up on such things because it suits them.”

He questioned the legality under current Serbian law, however.

“We are talking about a global threat that I do not like. The software can also physically track you,” said Marinovic. “In Serbia, we do not have the right to such a sophisticated type of data processing of citizens.”

In September 2020, the interior ministry announced a Draft Law on Internal Affairs containing contained provisions for the legalisation of an extensive biometric video surveillance system. It was withdrawn after public outcry.

“Once the system is in place, it means it will be very difficult to remove and it is an irreversible situation,” said Bojan Perkov of the Belgrade-based SHARE Foundation, which promotes human rights and freedoms online.

Griffeye did not respond to a request for comment, but its website says the software is intended to support investigators working on cases involving the sexual abuse of children. SHARE’s Filip Milosevic said it is a threat to privacy.

“Quick, easy and complete insight into the life of each individual,” Milosevic told BIRN.

“Such tools create very detailed profiles of individuals by crossing absolutely all their existing digital information. This can be information owned by the state, and the police can get access – traffic, cameras, financial system, health, social – complemented by data that citizens leave as a digital trace using devices and the Internet, such as Internet searches, site visits, applications, profiles on social networks, history of shopping, movements, interaction with other people.”

European Court Rules Against Bulgaria Over Secret Surveillance

Posted on January 11, 2022January 26, 2023 by Ivana Jeremic

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg ruled on Tuesday in favour of two lawyers who claimed that under the system of secret surveillance in Bulgaria, the communications of anyone in the country can be intercepted and accessed by the authorities.

The two lawyers, Mihail Ekimdzhiev and Aleksandar Kashamov, complained that the laws governing the interception and retention of surveillance data do not provide sufficient safeguards against arbitrary or abusive surveillance and accessing of the data.

Ekimdzhiev and Kashamov also argued that Bulgaria’s National Bureau for Control of Special Means of Surveillance operates with limited transparency, and that there is no effective remedy if there are abuses.

Neither claimed that they had been put under secret surveillance, but argued that the nature of their activities put them at risk of being put under surveillance and therefore of having their communications data accessed by the authorities.

The Strasbourg-based court ruled that Bulgaria had violated the right to respect for private life and correspondence under the European Convention on Human Rights with regard to secret surveillance and to the retention and accessing of communications data.

“The system of overseeing secret surveillance in Bulgaria as it was currently organised did not appear capable of providing effective guarantees against abusive surveillance,” it said in a statement.

The court also said that the independence of the National Bureau for Control of Special Means of Surveillance “could not be guaranteed, particularly as its members were given prior vetting by an agency whose requests they were meant to oversee”.

The court also noted that there are limited ways in which people subjected to surveillance can find out about the process or request information about it.

“Ultimately, the court held that the relevant legislation governing secret surveillance, especially as applied in practice, did not meet the quality-of-law requirement of the [European] Convention and was unable to keep surveillance to only that which was necessary,” it added

Bulgaria was ordered to pay 3,290.69 euros in costs and expenses.

Kashamov is a well-known legal expert at the NGO Access to Information, dealing with human rights, administrative, civil, criminal and commercial issues.

In 2001, he represented the first-ever cases over discrimination in Bulgaria, and later was head of the Commission on Journalistic Ethics.

Last year, Kashamov sought to raise awareness of how local authorities are dealing with sensitive personal data during COVID-19 and criticised how the European Arrest Warrant, a cross-border judicial surrender procedure, is being implemented in violation of European law.

Ekimdzhiev is also a well-known lawyer. In 1998, he became the founder of the Association for European Integration and Human Rights NGO. Under the umbrella of the organisation, he has been conducting public interest cases and providing free legal aid, as well as training lawyers and journalists in the field of human rights.

Both Kashamov and Ekimdzhiev have criticised Chief Prosecutor Ivan Geshev and called for judicial reform in Bulgaria.

Bulgaria has seen several high-profile surveillance cases recently. They included President Rumen Radev being wiretapped by the prosecution in 2020 and the authorities allegedly eavesdropping on protesters and opposition leaders during a wave of protests the same year.

Pegasus Phone-Hacking Spyware Victims Named in Poland

Posted on December 21, 2021January 26, 2023 by Ivana Jeremic

The University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, an internet watchdog that has been investigating the use of military-grade spyware from Israeli company NSO Group by authoritarian governments, said on Tuesday that the first two confirmed victims of phone-hacking using the Pegasus software in Poland are prosecutor Ewa Wrzosek and lawyer Roman Giertych.

Pegasus essentially turns infected phones into spying devices, making those who deploy the spyware able to access all data on the target’s phone, including messages and contacts.

The Associated Press, which first reported the new Citizen Lab findings on Tuesday, said that it cannot be confirmed who ordered the targeting of the two Poles.

Both targets have indicated that they suspect the Polish government.

In response to an inquiry from the AP, Polish state security spokesman Stanislaw Zaryn neither confirmed nor denied whether the government ordered the hacks.

Wrzosek is a well-known independent prosecutor who opposes the Polish government’s controversial justice reforms.

She also ordered an investigation into whether the 2020 presidential elections, which were organised during the pandemic, should have been postponed because they were too risky. Two days after she launched the case, she was transferred to a distant provincial town.

Giertych has been acting as lawyer for high-profile opposition politicians, including former Prime Minister Donald Tusk and former Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski.

He also defended an Austrian developer who revealed the involvement of ruling Law and Justice Party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski in a huge real estate deal to build to skyscrapers in the centre of Warsaw, which caused a major scandal.

Earlier this year, an international investigation by 17 media organisations found that the Hungarian government was among those that acquired the controversial Pegasus software from Israeli surveillance company NSO and used it to target a range of journalists, businessmen and activists.

No targets in Poland or other central European countries were identified at the time, but Citizen Lab warned that it had detected spyware infections in Poland dating back to November 2017.

Greek Intelligence Service Accused of ‘Alarming’ Surveillance Activity

Posted on November 17, 2021January 26, 2023 by Ivana Jeremic

Greek journalist Stavros Malichudis has described the activities of the country’s National Intelligence Service, EYP as “alarming” after a report alleged that he and others were put under surveillance.

“In theory, the National Intelligence Service is tasked with protecting the national security of the country. But journalism does not threaten society, it serves society,” Malichudis told BIRN.

The report by Greek journalist Dimitris Terzis for the newspaper EFSYN on Sunday presented evidence that journalists, civil servants and lawyers dealing with refugees, as well as members of the anti-vaccination movement, are being monitored by the EYP.

Terzis’ report alleged that wiretapping of telephone conversations and the creation of “ideological profiles” are some of the measures that have been used by the EYP, which comes under the control of Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s office.

The report claimed that Malichudis, a BIRN contributor, was targeted over his report for the Greek investigative media outlet Solomon about a 12-year-old refugee child from Syria who was forced to live for months in administrative detention with his family on the island of Kos.

Terzis alleged that the EYP knew the content of conversations between Malichudis and an employee of the International Organization for Migration, IOM who helped him with the report for Solomon.

Malichudis questioned the EYP’s motives for the surveillance.

“The question that needs to be answered is why was the EYP interested in the work of Solomon, and to whom is the intelligence that is collected provided?” he asked.

The International Press Institute said it was “deeply concerned” by the report that Solomon and Malichudis were “secretly monitored by the National Intelligence Service”. Greek media outlets such as Reporters United and Inside Story also expressed concerns.

Terzis said that his in-depth investigation gained him access to secret documents.

“It’s unquestionable that the secret service monitors people and it cannot deny this. In the last two-and-a-half years, with the transfer of the Secret Service to the administration of the prime minister’s office, and in combination with the general context of state repression, the instrumentation of the secret service by the state is obvious,” he said.

At a press briefing on Monday, government spokesperson Giannis Oikonomou indirectly confirmed the claims that the EYP monitors specific citizens because of risks to public safety from “internal or external threats”.

The Greek government’s spokesperson did not respond to BIRN’s request for a comment.

SYRIZA, the main opposition to the right-wing ruling party, has asked for parliament’s Special Standing Committee on Institutions and Transparency to be convened and the commander of the EYP to be summoned for a hearing.

Serbia Eyes Artificial Intelligence in Courts, but Experts See Dangers

Posted on January 25, 2021January 26, 2023 by Ivana Jeremic

The wheels of justice in Serbia sorely need speeding up. But when President Aleksandar Vucic told reporters last month that it would be “very important” to introduce artificial intelligence into the courts, not everyone was reassured.

Vucic’s remark about ‘predictive justice’ and the advent of “new, real and important changes” came in the context of a year-end press conference covering the full gamut of government policy, so he did not dwell on the details.

Now some digital rights activists and legal experts are sounding the alarm about the need to put the issue to full public debate, after an extensive Chinese-built network of surveillance cameras was rolled out in the capital, Belgrade, in 2019 to the surprise of unaware residents.

From identifying likely re-offenders to catching welfare fraudsters, predictive justice is a fast-growing phenomenon, alarming rights organisations that warn that such software can encourage racial profiling and discrimination and threaten privacy and freedom of expression.

Lawyer Djordje Krivokapic, co-founder of the Belgrade-based digital rights NGO SHARE Foundation, said AI has uses in courts in terms of case-management, automation and assistance in decision-making. But its introduction needs to be properly debated, he said.

“This represents a serious change in our society and some public debate and public discussion on this issue in general should be initiated regardless of the level at which it is discussed – except perhaps at the first level when some types of predictive algorithms are used in case-management to speed up the justice system and make it more efficient,” Krivokapic told BIRN.

He warned of the potential for discrimination. “Artificial intelligence and machine-learning algorithms have a lot of specifics that can lead to increased discrimination – or new forms of discrimination – and special attention must be paid to this.”

The justice ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

Uses and abuses

Serbia is already laying the ground for the use of AI in its public sector. In December 2019, the government adopted a strategy to develop the field over the period 2020-2025 and an Action Plan to enact the strategy was passed in June 2020.

Under the plan, the government will establish an Artificial Intelligence Council in the first quarter of this year. Neither document, however, discusses in detail the use of AI in the Serbian court system, which is notoriously slow and prone to political interference.

Besides a legislative framework, Serbia has also begun to automate case-storage and institutional communication in the judiciary.

Lawyer Milena Vasic from the Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights-YUCOM, said AI was becoming “a kind of inevitability in almost all areas of life”, and criminal justice could not be an exception.

“In particular, we should keep in mind simpler cases, such as, for example, we now have thousands of lawsuits against banks for loan processing costs that have practically buried the judiciary, or mass lawsuits that most often occur due to a mistake by the state,” Vasic told BIRN.

“Certainly, the use of artificial intelligence could make it easier to manage such cases, but since it is software, we should also talk about potential abuses or artificially raising the number of resolved cases.”

Ana Toskic Cvetinovic, executive director of the NGO Partners for Democratic Change Serbia, also warned of potential issues around discrimination of marginalised groups.

“Regarding the use of AI in the judiciary, it raises a number of other issues such as the impact on access to justice and the right to a fair trial, or free judicial conviction, even when AI is used to support decision-making, and especially if it is AI that would possibly replace judges,” Toskic Cvetinovic told BIRN.

Some forms of predictive justice simply cannot yet be applied in Serbia, YUCOM’s Vasic said.

“In our law, case law is still not a formal source of law and we have a lot of problems with harmonisation of case law,” she said. “What is crucial, however, is to harmonise the position on case law at the ‘human’ level before resolving cases with new methods involving artificial intelligence.”

“Such systems can be easily imagined in countries of the common law system,” Vasic noted, but “even there they suffer serious criticism for violating the right of citizens to a fair trial and are still in the so-called test phase.”

Lack of transparency

Part of map of smart cameras in Belgrade, view on city center. Screenshot: hiljade.kamera.rs

Serbia is already pursuing greater automation, for example in terms of parking in Belgrade.

In August last year, authorities went live with a system named ‘Falcon Eye’ involving 20 specialised cars equipped with cameras that can identify improperly parked cars and take photos, resulting in fines for the registered owners sent by post. Then there’s the Chinese ‘Safe City’ network of surveillance cameras with the potential for licence plate recognition and facial recognition.

There has little or no public debate about the use of such technology, the introduction of which has been criticised as lacking transparency.

Toskic Cvetinovic warned that the “flaws” of AI would be magnified in Serbia given the country’s poor record of protecting human rights.

“In addition, the protection of citizens’ privacy has so far not been in focus when planning or implementing projects that involve mass processing of personal data,” Toskic Cvetinovic told BIRN.

“What worries me most is the fact that the most flagrant violations of this right came from institutions that have public functions, so the trust in new similar projects has been shaken, and with good reason.”

“There is no transparency in decision-making, nor any wider social discussion about whether we need such projects and what are their advantages and what are the possible consequences. A special question is – who manages these systems? How they are protected? Can be abused, etc?”

Krivokapic of SHARE Foundation said Serbia does not have the proper means of monitoring how such technology is used.

“We don’t have state bodies… that do any monitoring of the success in implementing the information system in the public sector, and in general all those tools that are procured, paid for and so on. There is no monitoring,” he said.

Huawei Fights Exclusion from Romania’s 5G Race

Posted on November 24, 2020January 26, 2023 by Ivana Jeremic

Between 10 and 12 August this year, the Romanian government websites hosting the draft law that establishes the conditions for eligibility to implement 5G technology in the country – which implicitly bans Huawei – were flooded with suspicious-looking messages.

Signed by users bearing mostly Romanian but also Chinese names, they all expressed the same critical view about the legislation in question: that it would be very unwise to exclude Huawei from the race and that Romania’s interests would be seriously harmed if this happened.

Although citizens had 13 days to make comments on the law, all of these messages were registered over 72 consecutive hours. Before that time, or after it, no such comment was uploaded on the websites.

Most of the messages shared another dubious trait: they were either written in broken English or equally deficient Romanian, which suggested they had been Google translated, produced by some sort of automatic mechanism or filed by people with only a superficial knowledge of either language.

The evidence of what looks like a travesty of a public participation process can still be found at the website of the Ministry of Transport and Communications.

The flood of near-identical messages gives some idea of how aggressively Huawei is fighting its ban in Romania, which responds to national security concerns first raised by the US, which has prevented the use of Huawei technology in sensitive telecommunications at home and wants its allies to follow suit.

The US considers the company “an arm of the Chinese Communist Party’s surveillance state” and the US Department of Justice has indicted Huawei “for stealing US technology, conspiracy wire fraud, bank fraud, [and] racketeering”, among other charges.

In Romania, both the centre-right President, Klaud Iohannis, and his allied government have repeatedly voiced full alignment with the US in this matter. In July 2019, Romania became the first country in the world to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the US, committing it to barring Huawei from developing its 5G technology.

The draft legislation to materialize this, presented by the government on August 5, effectively bans the Chinese giant from the country by excluding companies with hazy ownership structures or that are controlled by a foreign government, have a history of unethical behaviour or are not subjected to an independent justice system in their home country.

While the final draft awaits a vote in Romania’s parliament, Huawei keeps opposing its exclusion tooth and nail through all the available channels.

Its latest action started on September 11, when the company sent the European Commission an open letter claiming the legislation put forward to ban the company in Romania and Poland was based on “biased and ambiguous criteria” designed to target “certain 5G suppliers because of their geographic origin.”

Huawei called on the Commission to take measures against “these legislative proposals that are contrary to the fundamental principles of the EU”, including non-discrimination, legal certainty and fair competition.

General view of the headquarters of the Romanian branch of Huawei, the Chinese multinational technology company that provides telecommunications equipment and sells consumer electronics, Bucharest, Romania, 09 September 2019. Archive photo: EPA-EFE/ROBERT GHEMENT

In line with the arguments of the industrially produced comments on the draft law uploaded in August to Romanian government websites, Huawei said its exclusion would “harm European industry, damage European economy, and weaken Europe’s digital resilience” as well as negatively impact job creation – all of it this time in impeccable English.

Huawei is also working on the public opinion front. In recent months, the Chinese giant has published numerous paid content pieces underscoring its importance for Romania’s economy and telecommunications sector, in a bid to gain popular support in its battle to enter the 5G implementation race in the country.

The US ambassador to Romania, Adrian Zuckerman, has fought back, accusing “Huawei and the Chinese embassy” of trying “to mislead the people of Romania” through these actions. The ambassador also reproached “some Romanian press outlets” for “so easily succumbing to the power of the almighty RON [Romania’s currency] and publishing propaganda for these corrupt entities and Communists”.

With upcoming legislative election set for December 6, Romania’s centre-right minority government is running out of time to try to get the Huawei ban adopted in a highly fragmented parliament, where the opposition Social Democratic Party, PSD, has the largest number seats. Most likely, the draft legislation will be voted on during the next term.

Several other EU governments have heeded US warnings and have moved to exclude Huawei from 5G technology development in their countries. Sweden was the last to join a list that includes the UK and several Central and Eastern European states such as Kosovo, Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Slovakia, which in October signed separate agreements with th US on that matter.

Globally, Huawei seems to be relying on a softer US policy to China under a Joe Biden administration to regain access to the foreign 5G markets from which it has been barred, as the company’s vice-president, Victor Zhang, told the UK Guardian in an interview about the Chinese firm’s perspectives in the UK.

In the case of Romania, Huawei’s only hope seems to be that the Social Democrats, now in opposition, prove pollsters wrong and win a fresh majority in the December 6 parliamentary elections.

The ruling centre-right National Liberal Party, PNL, firmly opposes Huawei’s participation in 5G technology, as does the country’s third largest party, the centrist USR-Plus alliance.

“We support the memorandum signed with the US on this matter as well as the position of many EU countries; this is, ‘NO’ Huawei for the 5G network of Romania,” USR PLUS parliamentarian Catalin Drula told BIRN. If the PNL does not get a sufficient majority with the support of smaller traditional allies, it might need to form a government with the USR PLUS alliance after December 6.

Less prone to close ranks with the US and the EU, the Social Democrats do not have a clear position on the Huawei file. Contacted by BIRN by telephone, its leader, Marcel Ciolacu, declined to comment on its position on Huawei, or anticipate how will his party vote when the 5G law reaches parliament: “Let’s wait to see the body of the law and then I will give you an opinion,” he said.