Homo Digitalis and our Executive Director, Eleftherios Chelioudakis, have the great pleasure of participating in the Blog Post Series of the Interdisciplinary Migration Research Unit (IMRU)!
In 2019, Frontex tried to procure an AI-powered tool to monitor social media and predict migration flows. Civil society scrutiny got it cancelled. 28 months later, the same surveillance vision resurfaced, this time through a Hellenic Coast Guard IT procurement, co-funded by EU security funds.
Our article traces the full story: from the original Frontex tender, through the scrutiny and legal challenges that led to its cancellation, to how a nearly identical system was procured in Greece, and what it reveals about the growing entanglement of AI, social media, and border control. A case study in how surveillance initiatives blocked at the EU level can re-emerge through national procurement, even when co-financed with EU funds.
Read the piece here.
Many thanks to IMRU and IMRU’s Founder and Coordinator, Angelo Tramountanis for the opportunity to collaborate!