Argentine Ministry creates intelligence unit to patrol social networks

Buenos Aires. Through resolution 71 0/2024 published yesterday in the Official Gazette of the Argentine Republic, an Artificial Intelligence Unit applied to Security (UIAAS) was created to impose the “patrol of open social networks, applications and Internet sites, as well as the so-called deep Internet or Dark-Web” which will allow “analyzing activities on social networks to detect potential threats, identify movements of criminal groups or anticipate disturbances”, among other functions.

The UIAAS will be under the control of the Ministry of Security headed by Patricia Bullrich – who has no experience in this system but has already used it – and will operate within the Cybercrime and Cyber ​​Affairs Directorate.

The creation of this Unit – announced more than two months ago but which went unnoticed in the local media, although it was published in this newspaper – worsens the situation of surveillance and persecution of the sectors that oppose the government of the far-right president Javier Milei.

Even at this time, strange movements are being reported, including the raid on the home of a young man in a Buenos Aires neighborhood, based on a dialogue he had on the social network Instagram in which he supposedly threatened to shoot President Milei in the head.

Bullrich asked the Federal Court to authorize the search, with an astonishing police move, to access the social networks that the detained young man used. According to the minister, this demonstrated “an ideological thought with communist links, which could lead to actions that threaten public order.”

Is this or is it not a political persecution as has happened with others? This is the question that is being asked here. It also recalls an announcement made by Bullrich at the beginning of this year, saying that the Ministry of Security had discovered and prevented a plan, in which three men of Syrian-Lebanese origin were involved, to attack the government.

After being arrested and accused of planning an attack, the three were released by a federal court because no evidence could be found.

The serious thing is that the detainees had no political activity: one was a hairdresser in the municipality of Avellaneda, province of Buenos Aires; another a ping pong player and the third, a social media user. Something incredible, for which the official did not even apologize.

When Bullrich held the same position in Mauricio Macri’s administration, she would arrest anyone, as she did with two young people who created a fake Twitter account, where they warned about alleged attacks that never happened.

Those who simply disagree with government policy have thus become “dangerous suspects”, while the presidency has created hundreds of trolls who are dedicated to threatening those who denounce and reject Milei’s policies.

The resolution also provides for the use of Artificial Intelligence for “facial recognition,” a technology that was applied by the right-wing Republican Proposal (PRO) in the City of Buenos Aires. There were complaints and rulings of unconstitutionality by the Judiciary, and now progress is being made on the possibility of “analyzing images from security cameras in real time.”

Another task to be taken on by the Ministry of Security is to “patrol large areas using drones, provide aerial surveillance and respond to emergencies.” But there are a number of other possibilities that allow for mass espionage, including the creation of lists of dangerous people, which, in this country with so many dictatorships, is understood as extreme surveillance of the population.