{
  "id": 1849843,
  "title": "Amnesty International slams rise of Argentina’s 'surveillance state'",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/19/amnesty-international-slams-rise-of-argentinas-surveillance-state",
  "topic": "business",
  "section": "Business",
  "published": "2026-08-19T01:24:54.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Buenos Aires Times",
    "slug": "buenos-aires-times",
    "url": "https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/argentina/amnesty-international-slams-rise-of-argentinas-surveillance-state.phtml"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Amnesty International Argentina has expressed grave concerns over the increasing use of surveillance technologies by President Javier Milei's government, particularly against its critics. In a recent report titled \"Sensing the Surveillance State: Argentina’s Expanding Policies and Technologies of Mass Surveillance,\" Amnesty highlights the government's creation of databases of protesters, monitoring of social media activity, and the use of facial recognition technology, which they claim is suppressing dissent. Since President Milei assumed office in December 2023, the Argentine government has implemented numerous security and intelligence reforms, significantly expanding their surveillance capabilities. These measures are intended to control and deter protest, thereby strengthening authoritarian practices, as stated in the report.\n\nThe Argentine National Security Ministry reportedly spent a minimum of US$1.2 million to acquire surveillance technologies between 2024 and 2025. Amnesty's report indicates that the National Security Ministry has obtained a license to use facial-recognition technology from Clearview AI, a firm notorious for its unlawful acquisition of biometric data. Clearview AI has faced fines from authorities in France, Greece, Italy, and the Netherlands for its misuse of such technology. The Amnesty researcher who contributed to the report, Matt Mahmoudi, emphasizes that this trend is part of a worldwide \"techno-authoritarianism\" wave, adversely affecting individuals through self-censorship on social media and reduced involvement in political affairs.\n\nAccording to the Amnesty report, cyber-patrolling in Argentina has been employed to \"attack dissent, deter protest movements, and harass marginalized groups,\" among other authoritarian practices. Mahmoudi asserts that this scenario is not unique to Argentina. Instead, it reflects a worldwide pattern where states embracing authoritarianism are intensifying their surveillance technologies against human rights advocates, young people, migrants, marginalized and displaced populations, and dissidents. In response to these findings, Amnesty is advocating for a global ban on the development, production, sale, and use of biometric recognition technology for surveillance purposes, alongside the creation of a comprehensive regulatory framework.",
  "summary": "Massive online surveillance is deterring the right to protest in Argentina, says Amnesty International NGO in latest report. Leer más",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}