"Big Brother is watching you." - George Orwell

1. The Eyes of AI, Watching Around the Clock

Even as you read these words, thousands of invisible eyes are watching you. The camera in your smartphone, the CCTV on the street, the facial recognition system at the subway station, even the social media posts you liked. Everything becomes data, analyzed and stored somewhere you cannot see.

Artificial intelligence was born to make human life richer and more convenient. It was supposed to be a kind of magic: helping doctors diagnose diseases, solving traffic jams, breaking down language barriers. But what has actually happened? That same brilliant technology is now being used to surveil and control people, and in some cases, it has been turned into weapons that threaten lives. The technology itself is not evil. The question is what the hands holding it intend to do.

When Israel's Lavender system calculates the life and death of Palestinians by numbers, when China's Skynet tracks the every move of 1.4 billion people, when America's Palantir analyzes global intelligence in real time, we need to recognize something. AI is no longer just a convenient tool. It is becoming a set of shackles that binds us.

AI surveillance systems spreading across the world share a chilling set of traits. First, they don't ask for your consent. Whether you want it or not, your personal information is collected on a massive scale. Second, nobody knows how the algorithms actually work. They are as opaque as a black box. Third, they make critical decisions despite being far from perfect. A 10% error rate means you could be one of the people caught in that margin. Fourth, they disproportionately target specific groups, singling out people for the color of their skin, the religion they practice, or the political views they hold.

This is not a matter of technology alone. It is a matter of human rights, one that shakes the very foundations of every value democratic societies have protected: human dignity, privacy, freedom of expression, freedom of religion. Even South Korea's National Human Rights Commission recommended in May 2024 that organizations use an "AI Human Rights Impact Assessment Tool." Our country is not exempt from this problem.

Right now, at this very moment, a decision is being made: whether AI will become a tool that liberates people or a set of chains that oppresses them. The ones who get to decide are not governments or corporations. It is you, it is me, it is all of us.

2. Israel's 'Lavender' System

In April 2024, a revelation shook the world. The independent Israeli-Palestinian outlet +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call exposed the truth about an AI system called "Lavender." What they uncovered turned every nightmare we had about AI into reality.

Developed by the Israeli military's intelligence unit, this AI looked down on Gaza like the eye of God, assigning a score from 1 to 100 to each of the 2.3 million people living there. The score was meant to calculate the likelihood that a person was a Hamas militant. Who you called, what apps you downloaded, which places you visited frequently; everything became raw material for the algorithm.

Lavender first learned from data on known Hamas operatives: the phone brands they used, the apps they downloaded most often, their calling patterns, their travel routes. Then it searched for people showing similar patterns, scoring them one by one. Like a flu virus spreading from host to host, the web of suspicion expanded along every connection it could find.

An Algorithm That Calculates Life in Numbers

The Israeli military was satisfied that Lavender achieved 90% accuracy. Ninety percent sounds impressive at first. But stop and think about what it means. It means 10% could be wrong. If Lavender designated 37,000 people as strike targets, roughly 3,700 of them could have been innocent. Can you call 3,700 lives a margin of error?

What made things worse was that human verification procedures loosened after the war began. Before the conflict, an internal rule required "at least two pieces of independently obtained human intelligence to support Lavender's judgment." Once the war in Gaza started, that standard dropped to one. In practice, even that single check was often ignored.

The testimony of one intelligence analyst sends a chill down your spine. "We just rubber-stamped Lavender's decisions. It took only 20 seconds to approve a strike on a target." In effect, the AI was making life-and-death decisions. Human judgment had been reduced to a formality.

One officer's cold remark sums it all up: "Saving money, time, and manpower mattered far more than civilian lives."

"Where's Daddy?": A System That Holds Families Hostage

Another system operating alongside Lavender has a name that is unsettling on its own. Called "Where's Daddy?", this tracking system detects the moment a target returns home and alerts the Israeli military.

Why "Where's Daddy?" The reason is as simple as it is brutal. The system times its strikes for the moment a father walks through his front door. It learns the target's daily routines, identifies the location of his home, and monitors in real time when he enters it.

The testimony of an Israeli officer is staggering. "We didn't only strike Hamas operatives when they were in military buildings or engaged in military activity. It was much easier to attack them at home. The system was built to figure out when Hamas operatives were in their houses."

The outcome was predictable. To eliminate a single target, entire families were killed alongside him. When a bomb hits a home, the people inside, wives, children, relatives, have no chance. It was a direct violation of the principle of civilian protection enshrined in international law.

"Collateral Damage": A License for Mass Killing

The accounts from six Israeli military intelligence officers are even more shocking. During the first weeks of the war, the military accepted that assassinating each militant identified by Lavender could kill 15 to 20 civilians, and considered this an "acceptable range." For strikes against Hamas commanders, the deaths of over 100 civilians were permitted.

An international law expert at the U.S. State Department told The Guardian, "A ratio of 1 to 15 is something I've never heard of, especially for low-ranking combatants." In other words, the civilian casualty threshold Israel applied was unprecedentedly permissive by international standards.

The words of IDF insiders capture the whole situation: "We didn't want to spend excessive personnel and time on low-ranking militants. The collateral damage, the civilian casualties, and the risk of mistakenly striking innocent people were all considered an acceptable price for using AI."

A Machine's Verdict That Denies Human Dignity

The deepest problem with the Lavender system is that it treats human life as raw data. A person's lived experience, emotions, family bonds, and personal history are all erased. Life and death are decided solely by probabilities an algorithm has calculated. This is a fundamental denial of human dignity, and it completely inverts the principle that technology should exist to serve people.

There is no transparency whatsoever. No one can know exactly what criteria the algorithm uses to classify someone as a dangerous individual, and those wrongly classified have no way to prove their innocence. Lives are taken without due process or legal protection.

The Facial Recognition Nightmare in Gaza

The facial recognition technology Israel deployed in Gaza alongside Lavender was another nightmare. Introduced after the 2023 Gaza war broke out, ostensibly to root out Hamas-affiliated individuals and identify Israeli hostages, the system in practice became a tool for indiscriminate surveillance of Palestinian residents.

The operation, led by Israeli intelligence Unit 8200, used facial recognition technology from a private company called Corsight. It operated through checkpoints, drones, and military cameras, with Corsight employees deployed on-site to provide technical support.

Israeli soldiers stationed in Gaza were given cameras equipped with this technology. Every time displaced civilians passed through a checkpoint, their faces were randomly photographed and scanned, then cross-referenced against existing databases to determine their identities.

Corsight boasted that its facial recognition technology could "accurately identify faces even when less than 50% of the face is visible, in darkness, or in low-resolution conditions." Reality told a different story. Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha is living proof. He was fleeing with his three-year-old child when he was scanned by a facial recognition camera at an Israeli military checkpoint. An AI error misidentified him as someone on a wanted list. He was detained for two days, beaten, and tortured.

Amnesty International condemned Israel's actions as "automated apartheid." It became a defining example of the severe human rights violations that can occur when AI technology is weaponized for war and surveillance.

3. China Can Find You by Your Walk Alone

There is nowhere to hide from China's Skynet system. Its name comes from Laozi's Tao Te Ching: "Heaven's net is vast and wide; its mesh seems loose, yet nothing slips through." But who decides what counts as wrongdoing? The Chinese Communist Party.

Scanning 1.4 Billion People in One Second

China has installed over one billion CCTV cameras nationwide. Imagine it. One billion eyes watching you around the clock. The Chinese government boasts that the system can scan the entire population in a single second. Distinguishing 1.4 billion faces in one second is a technological marvel, but from a human rights perspective, it is terrifying.

China's facial recognition technology is the most advanced in the world. In the 2018 Face Recognition Vendor Test hosted by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Chinese companies swept first through fourth place. The reason they lead the world in this field is straightforward: they have 1.4 billion test subjects.

99.8% Accuracy

Skynet's facial recognition accuracy reaches 99.8%. In its first two years of operation, the system led to the arrest of more than 2,000 criminals. But here is what matters: the system identifies individuals not only by their faces but also by the way they walk. Wearing a hat or a mask won't help. Your gait alone is enough to find you.

Real cases show just how powerful the system is. A woman who murdered her boyfriend 17 years earlier was identified by a facial recognition system installed at a highway toll booth. At a concert with roughly 50,000 attendees, a man wanted for financial crimes was spotted by facial recognition cameras and arrested. In another case, the perpetrator of a 2000 corpse mutilation case in Zhejiang Province was tracked down 16 years later.

The most dramatic case happened at a temple in Anhui Province. The system discovered that the head monk's face matched a violent crime suspect. The fugitive had changed his name and lived as a monk for over a decade. He was arrested.

These cases reveal how precise and far-reaching China's surveillance technology has become. At the same time, they show how severely such technology can invade the privacy of ordinary citizens.

Sharp Eyes: Completing the Surveillance Web

In 2016, with approval from the Central Committee of the Communist Party, China launched the Sharp Eyes project. The plan was ambitious: build a CCTV surveillance network capable of monitoring and controlling the entire country around the clock.

Sharp Eyes goes far beyond installing more cameras. It connects CCTV cameras on roads and in public facilities to residents' televisions, mobile phones, and smart door locks, creating a network that tracks situations in real time. It is, in effect, building a society where every citizen watches every other citizen.

Imagine a world where your television, your phone, even your front door becomes a government surveillance tool. When people say all of China is blanketed by a massive surveillance net, this is exactly what they mean.

Everyday Surveillance

China's facial recognition technology has now seeped into every corner of daily life. If you violate a traffic law, your face is photographed and displayed on an electronic billboard. Jaywalking is caught automatically. When paying a subway fare, you can do it with just your palm or your face, no smartphone needed.

Beijing's Temple of Heaven Park even installed facial recognition machines to prevent toilet paper theft. You must have your face scanned before the machine dispenses a set amount of paper. Your face is recorded even in the restroom.

Starting December 1, 2019, facial scans became mandatory for anyone registering a new mobile phone number. The government cited "protecting citizens' rights in cyberspace," but the real purpose was building a government-run biometric database. The collected facial data was integrated with a surveillance network linked to more than 700 million CCTV cameras nationwide, enabling real-time identification and movement tracking.

The COVID-19 pandemic became the perfect opportunity to expand surveillance technology. Temperature checks paired with facial recognition for access control became routine at schools, government buildings, and apartment complexes. Technology capable of identifying people even while wearing masks was developed and deployed.

Xinjiang and the Uyghurs

The most extreme application of China's surveillance system is in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The area has become a literal laboratory for surveillance technology. CCTV cameras and facial scanning systems have been installed at 6.7 million locations across Xinjiang, including mosques, Uyghur communities, airports, train stations, and bus stops.

According to Human Rights Watch, 2.5 million people, one-tenth of Xinjiang's population, are under daily surveillance by Chinese intelligence authorities. Biometric data including DNA, fingerprints, iris scans, and blood types are being forcibly collected from residents aged 12 to 65. This amounts to treating every person as a potential criminal.

The Integrated Joint Operations Platform (IJOP) used to monitor Uyghurs is itself a tool of racial discrimination. The platform collects biometric data, including DNA, to track Uyghurs across Xinjiang. It goes beyond surveillance. It represents systematic repression and control over an entire ethnic minority.

The list of 2,000 Uyghur detainees from Aksu County obtained by Human Rights Watch is staggering. Reasons for detention included studying the Quran without permission, growing a long beard, using a VPN, repeatedly turning off a mobile phone, and practicing religion. These ordinary, everyday acts became grounds for surveillance and imprisonment in detention camps.

Huawei reportedly developed a surveillance camera system specifically targeting Uyghurs, sparking controversy. When the system detects a member of the Uyghur minority, it automatically triggers a 'Uyghur alarm' and notifies police. Alibaba is also known to possess a facial recognition program capable of identifying Uyghurs.

Operation Knock: Targeting the Religious

China pressures religious believers to follow communist ideology rooted in atheism and Marxism. The Communist Party views religious organizations as potential challengers that could oppose the Party's authority.

The memory of 1860 remains vivid, when Hong Xiuquan's Taiping Rebellion, waged under Christian ideology, nearly toppled the Qing Dynasty. Since Xi Jinping took power, the government has tightened control under a policy of 'Sinicization of religion,' demanding that religious organizations comply with Party and government directives.

Under Article 300 of China's Criminal Law, participating in a banned religious organization is a crime punishable by three to seven years in prison. The government offers rewards of 100,000 yuan to anyone who reports members of banned religious groups, building a nationwide informant system.

Starting in early 2017, a sweeping surveillance campaign known as 'Operation Knock' was carried out across China. Under various pretexts, police were dispatched to investigate religious individuals, photograph them, and file records. It was part of a nationwide surveillance system designed to track religious believers.

The collected data is stored on computers belonging exclusively to the Ministry of State Security, and investigators actively seek evidence against those who spread religion. Once evidence is secured, further investigations follow. After the investigation phase, subjects are placed under continuous surveillance through the 'Eagle Eye' and 'Skynet' programs.

The Social Credit System: Human Worth Measured in Points

China's Social Credit System operates on a mechanism of 'reward trust, punish distrust.' It observes and scores the behavior of everyone living in China. Think of how a school evaluates student behavior. The government examines the conduct of each individual citizen and assigns a score.

The system is not a single, centrally legislated framework. Local governments, railway authorities, financial institutions, and other agencies each build their own versions. But because so many local governments and agencies participate, in practice the system operates uniformly across the entire country.

People with high credit scores don't need to pay deposits when checking into hotels and can get visas faster than others. Those with low scores face restrictions and penalties on hotel stays, train travel, and freedom of movement.

The Social Credit System monitors people's behavior through multiple methods. CCTV cameras watch around the clock, and facial recognition technology identifies who did what and where. Internet browsing history, shopping records, loan repayment records, traffic violations: every piece of daily life gets collected.

Earning a good score requires paying taxes on time, obeying traffic rules, and repaying debts promptly. Volunteering and taking care of one's parents also help. On the other hand, running a red light, failing to repay loans, or spreading false information lowers the score. Criticizing or opposing the government causes a sharp drop.

Global Spread

The most alarming development is the spread of China's surveillance model around the world. China exports surveillance technology to other countries, and many developing nations are adopting it. Countries across Africa, South America, and Asia have imported Chinese surveillance technology to monitor their own citizens.

Surveillance technology developed by Chinese companies such as Huawei, Hikvision, and Dahua is now in use across numerous countries. The Chinese model of surveillance is going global.

China's Skynet system stands as a clear example that technological advancement does not guarantee human freedom and happiness. It was built with the stated goal of improving public safety and order, yet it poses a serious threat to individual liberty and human rights. Technology should make human life better. Instead, it is being used as a tool for control and repression.

4. Palantir

Have you heard the name Palantir Technologies? The company takes its name from the palantir, a magical seeing-stone in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. In the novel, the stone could observe and monitor distant places. The real Palantir is no different.

Founded in 2003 by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, the company operates one of the most powerful data analysis and surveillance systems in the world. Its clients include the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, the Department of Defense, and other core U.S. intelligence agencies. More recently, private companies have begun using Palantir's services as well.

A Digital Kraken That Swallows All the World's Data

Palantir's core technology integrates and analyzes vast amounts of data from different sources. Using artificial intelligence and machine learning, it finds hidden patterns and connections across billions of data points. Satellite imagery, mobile phone call records, financial transaction histories, social media posts, government databases: it can analyze every type of information at once.

What makes it even more frightening is that all of this happens in real time. The moment new information arrives, analysis begins, comparing it against existing data to identify meaningful patterns or warning signs. It is like a massive digital brain watching the world 24 hours a day.

Gotham and Foundry: The All-Seeing Eye for Governments and Corporations

Palantir operates two main platforms according to its primary customer base: Gotham, designed for government agencies, and Foundry, built for private corporations.

Gotham is Palantir's government platform, used for military operations, counterterrorism, intelligence gathering, and criminal investigations. Its nickname is 'the digital chessboard' because it visualizes complex situations like a chess board to support strategic decision-making.

Looking at Gotham's main capabilities, the first is Signal Intelligence analysis. This function analyzes electronic communications collected from around the world, processing all types of electronic signals in real time, including mobile phone calls, internet traffic, and satellite communications.

The second is Human Intelligence integration. When reports from classified sources, interview records, and field observation reports are entered, the system automatically connects and cross-references them with other intelligence. For example, it can instantly verify whether information reported by a source matches satellite imagery or intercepted communications.

The third is Geospatial Intelligence analysis. It analyzes satellite images, drone footage, and map data in real time to detect changes on the ground. It can automatically identify changes such as new buildings being constructed, troop movements, or weapons being deployed.

The fourth is Open Source Intelligence collection and analysis. It automatically collects and analyzes posts from social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. It can gauge the political climate or level of social unrest in a specific region in real time.

Foundry is the civilian platform. Its data analysis capabilities are similar to Gotham's, but it specializes in business operations rather than military or intelligence work. Built on a simulation engine, it can integrate and manage corporate data across finance, human resources, logistics, and inventory.

The Ukraine War: Palantir's Live Battlefield

After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Palantir came to play a critical role in the war. Three months after the invasion began, in June 2022, Ukrainian President Zelensky met with Palantir CEO Alex Karp to request military support. The fact that Karp was the first Western corporate CEO Zelensky met during the war speaks to Palantir's importance.

Palantir decided to provide its software to Ukraine free of charge. This was a strategic calculation. It was an opportunity to test and refine its technology in an actual war zone. For the company, the Russia-Ukraine war offered invaluable data and experience that would be nearly impossible to obtain outside of real combat.

The primary system Palantir provided to Ukraine is an integrated analysis platform called 'Metaconstellation.' Its core function is to analyze satellite imagery, open-source data, drone footage, and intelligence reports in real time using AI, giving Ukrainian commanders the information they need to assess battlefield conditions and select attack targets.

Palantir CEO Alex Karp told Reuters, 'Palantir's AI system is responsible for most of the Ukrainian military's targeting.' The Economist assessed that 'Palantir's AI system served as the sling in the fight between David (Ukraine) and Goliath (Russia).'

The Dark Shadow of Civilian Surveillance

Technology that finds and tracks enemy forces on the battlefield can, with only minor modifications, become a tool for governments to monitor and control their own citizens. Palantir has already been embroiled in multiple controversies involving civilian surveillance.

JP Morgan initially adopted Palantir to monitor employees for regulatory violations. But the system ended up being used to surveil the private lives of company executives, sparking controversy and leading to the contract's cancellation.

Palantir's system has the ability to find whatever information a user wants. It can track and analyze every digital trace a person leaves, from emails and phone calls to financial transactions, location data, and social media activity.

Palantir holds a contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to help track and arrest undocumented immigrants. This case illustrates how the technology can be used to oppress vulnerable populations. More than 200 Palantir employees signed a petition expressing concern about the ICE contract, and 13 former employees publicly criticized the company's direction.

The Spread of the Digital Surveillance Alliance

Palantir has contracts with government agencies in roughly 40 countries worldwide, including the United States. These governments adopt Palantir's technology under the names of counterterrorism, criminal investigation, border management, and public safety. But once these systems are built, their scope and purpose tend to expand.

In democratic societies, citizens could watch and check their governments. Through freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of expression, citizens could criticize government failures and demand reform. As powerful surveillance technology like Palantir's falls into government hands, this balance is collapsing. Governments can monitor and analyze every citizen's behavior in real time, while citizens find it increasingly difficult to know what their government is doing. The relationship between the watchers and the watched is being reversed.

On the international level, Palantir's spread is equally alarming. The United States is effectively forming a 'digital surveillance alliance' by providing Palantir's technology to its allies. This means that surveillance technology is being standardized on a global scale.

The Dangerous Marriage of Technology and Power

Palantir demonstrates how dangerous the fusion of technology and power can become. The company's co-founder Peter Thiel maintains close ties to the U.S. Republican Party and supported Donald Trump. The possibility that Palantir's technology could be used to serve the interests of a particular political faction cannot be entirely ruled out.

Palantir's market capitalization has surpassed those of traditional defense contractors. As of December 2024, Palantir's market cap reached $174 billion, exceeding Lockheed Martin ($121.6 billion), Northrop Grumman ($69 billion), and others. Software-based surveillance technology is now valued higher than hardware-based traditional defense companies.

Palantir's story sends an important warning. Technology is not neutral. Depending on who uses it, for what purpose, and in what manner, it can either liberate humanity or oppress it. The choices we make now will determine the world future generations live in.

5. The U.S. NSA

The NSA classified documents Edward Snowden leaked in 2013 shocked the world. They revealed that the U.S. National Security Agency had wiretapped the mobile phones of leaders from 35 countries. German Chancellor Merkel's phone had been tapped for roughly ten years, from 2002 to 2013. Germany and other European allies expressed deep distrust toward the United States, and diplomatic tensions escalated.

According to Snowden's disclosures, the NSA planted listening devices in the Washington embassies of 38 allied nations, including South Korea and Japan, and used special antennas to intercept radio signals. It was all-encompassing espionage. Even the European Union headquarters in Brussels was a surveillance target. The self-proclaimed 'guardian of freedom' was monitoring its allies as if they were adversaries.

The NSA operated a system called 'PRISM' that directly accessed the servers of global tech companies, including Google, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft, collecting personal emails, photos, call records, and all other information in real time. It even hacked China's Tsinghua University and Hong Kong telecommunications firms, waging indiscriminate information warfare against enemies and allies alike.

Germany's Justice Minister was furious enough to say the behavior "recalls the actions of enemy states during the Cold War." That is how far the betrayal of allied surveillance had gone. The CIA used consulates in Frankfurt and Hamburg as hacking bases, running cyber espionage operations openly on allied soil.

Surveillance Grows More Sophisticated After the Snowden Leaks

More than a decade has passed since Snowden's revelations. In that time, artificial intelligence has advanced dramatically. After President Obama's apology, did U.S. intelligence agencies actually stop tapping the phones and communications networks of allied leaders? I believe they never stopped.

Where the NSA once focused on collecting massive volumes of communications data, AI has now evolved to analyze and predict from that data in real time. AI algorithms can process in minutes what human analysts would need years to work through. From emails, social media posts, and call records, the system can instantly identify a specific individual's political leanings, critical opinions, and contact networks, then map the connections between them.

Predictive surveillance and behavioral analysis have become possible too. By learning from historical data, these systems can forecast the future actions of specific individuals or groups. They can classify people who attend political rallies or repeatedly express opinions on certain topics online, then subject all of their online activity and communications to intensive monitoring.

Facial recognition and behavioral recognition systems have also advanced. CCTV cameras, drones, and satellite imagery spreading across the globe now combine with AI's eyes to build powerful real-time tracking systems. AI has progressed beyond identifying a specific person's face; it can now identify individuals even when they wear masks or only part of their face is visible. By analyzing biometric information such as gait and behavioral patterns, it has become possible to pick out a specific person in a crowd and track their movements.

Five Eyes: A Surveillance Alliance That Bypasses Domestic Law

The Five Eyes intelligence alliance, composed of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, has built a global surveillance network using cutting-edge technology. Intelligence agencies from each country share and analyze collected data, operating a comprehensive surveillance system.

The most cunning aspect of this alliance is how it circumvents each country's legal restrictions. The U.S. government faces legal limits on directly surveilling its own citizens, but receiving information about Americans collected by the United Kingdom or other allied nations is relatively unrestricted. This effectively neutralizes each country's privacy protection laws and surveillance regulations.

Intelligence agencies are collecting personal information on a massive scale through social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. These platforms hold vast troves of data on users' daily activities, personal relationships, political leanings, and spending patterns. AI technology can analyze this information to predict an individual's personality, political orientation, and behavioral patterns. Research has shown that the pattern of which posts a person "likes" alone can predict their political leanings with over 90% accuracy.

The Net of Financial Surveillance and Location Tracking

Financial institutions monitor transaction data. From this, they can determine an individual's economic activity, spending patterns, and personal relationships. When someone withdraws money in a certain area or makes a purchase at a particular store, their location and activity can be tracked. AI technology can be misused as a tool to surveil the economic activity of every citizen.

Location data collected through smartphones, GPS devices, and credit cards allows detailed mapping of an individual's movement patterns. AI technology can analyze location data to identify a person's daily routines, the people they meet, and the places they frequent. This information can be used to predict and monitor a specific individual's behavior. A person who deviates from their usual movement pattern can be flagged as exhibiting "suspicious behavior" and placed on an additional surveillance list.

Digital Totalitarianism Eroding Democracy

AI-based surveillance systems pose a serious threat to democracy and human rights. Fundamental democratic rights, including personal privacy, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and political participation, are being constrained by surveillance and control. As monitoring of political dissidents and social activists intensifies, healthy political debate and social criticism can be suppressed. This risks undermining the democratic principle of checks and balances.

We stand at a critical crossroads. As technology advances, the sophistication and reach of surveillance keep expanding. Now is the time to choose. Will we live under total surveillance in the name of convenience and safety, or will we accept some inconvenience to protect freedom and human dignity?

6. The Threat of Digital Dictatorship

Big Data Seized Without Consent

Every moment of your day becomes data: checking your smartphone when you wake up, riding the subway to work, drinking coffee at a cafe, shopping online. And that data is collected, analyzed, and used as the basis for decisions, all without your consent.

The most basic problem with AI surveillance systems operating around the world is that they never bother to ask for people's consent. Israel's Lavender system collected and analyzed the information of most of Gaza's 2.3 million residents. In China, facial data is collected by force, whether citizens want it or not.

The right to control one's own personal information is a fundamental right in a democratic society. Every person has the right to know who is using their information, when, and for what purpose, and the right to decide whether to consent to or refuse that use. But AI surveillance systems completely disregard these rights.

What makes it worse is that the scope of information being collected goes beyond imagination. It is not just facial photos or names. Location data, call records, internet search history, social media activity, even gait and behavioral patterns, everything becomes a target for collection. Every move you make is recorded and analyzed.

The Dictatorship of Black-Box Algorithms

Ordinary people have no way of knowing how these systems work. It has not been made clear how Lavender's algorithm was trained and learned, or what criteria China's facial recognition system uses to identify people. These systems make life-or-death decisions, yet the process behind them remains shrouded in secrecy.

Algorithmic transparency is a critical principle in a democratic society. People have the right to know the basis and process behind automated decisions that affect their rights. But current AI surveillance systems operate as "black boxes," and no one can verify how they work internally.

This is extremely dangerous. Even if an algorithm is biased or contains errors, there is no way to verify or correct it. When a wrong judgment is made, the reason remains unknown, and therefore the mistake cannot be fixed.

These systems are not perfect, either. Lavender's 10% error rate means innocent civilians risk being misidentified. Even if China's facial recognition system boasts 99.8% accuracy, that means 2 out of every 1,000 people could be wrongly identified. Applied to a population of 1.4 billion, tens of millions could become victims of misidentification.

An Electronic Prison That Watches 24 Hours a Day

Picture the world that modern AI surveillance systems are building. From the moment you step outside your door until you return, every moment is recorded and analyzed, except when you sleep. Where you go, who you meet, what you buy, even the expressions on your face; everything becomes data.

China's surveillance apparatus is linked to a social credit system that analyzes citizens' social behavior and even evaluates their loyalty to the government. It severely restricts people's right to act and think freely.

This total surveillance produces a chilling effect. When people know they are being watched at all times, they hold back from expressing opinions freely or participating in political activity. The result is suppression of free expression and political participation, the very foundations of democracy.

Look at the Uyghurs. People have been imprisoned for studying the Quran without a permit, growing a long beard, or using a VPN. These are violations of religious freedom, freedom of expression, and the right to privacy all at once. In a society where ordinary acts are treated as crimes, no one is safe.

When Machines Pass Sentences of Life and Death

The testimony of an Israeli intelligence officer about the Lavender system is chilling. 'As a human being, I played no role other than stamping my approval.' Human judgment was effectively removed from the most consequential decisions involving human life.

Handing life-and-death decisions to machines is profoundly dangerous. No matter how advanced an AI may be, it cannot fully grasp the context of complex situations or make ethical judgments. In war and policing, unexpected variables arise constantly, and mechanical decision-making in those circumstances can produce fatal outcomes.

Automated decisions blur the lines of accountability. When an innocent person is harmed by a wrong decision, it is unclear who bears responsibility. Was it the developer, the operator, or the superior who gave the order? The distinction is hard to draw.

Consider the case of Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha. Fleeing with his three-year-old child, he was misidentified as a wanted person by a facial recognition AI error, detained for two days, and tortured. A machine's mistake left a wound on one person's life that can never be erased.

Digital Bloodhounds Targeting the Vulnerable

Another problem with AI surveillance systems is that they monitor certain groups in a discriminatory way. China's surveillance infrastructure is being used as a tool to suppress ethnic minorities such as Uyghurs and Kazakhs. This violates the basic human rights principle that all people must be treated equally.

AI systems mirror the biases in their training data. If the data contains prejudice against a particular race or religion, the AI learns and reproduces that prejudice. The effect is to lock in and amplify existing social discrimination through technology.

Ethnic and religious minorities are already in a socially vulnerable position. AI surveillance systems are making their human rights situation worse by subjecting them to even more discriminatory monitoring and control.

Huawei's 'Uyghur alarm' system and Alibaba's Uyghur identification program show, in stark terms, how technology can become a tool of racial discrimination. A world where an alarm goes off automatically just because someone belongs to a particular ethnic group: is this the future we want?

Digital Outlaws Trampling International Law

Media outlets have sharply criticized Israel's AI-based strikes as 'acts against humanity that clearly disregard international law.' International law guarantees everyone's right to life, the right to privacy, freedom of expression, and freedom of religion. International humanitarian law also requires that even during war, combatants must distinguish between civilians and military targets and must avoid excessive civilian casualties.

Yet the AI surveillance systems currently in operation are directly violating these principles of international law. The 'Where's Daddy?' system deliberately striking homes where families have gathered, China surveilling and suppressing the entire Uyghur population, and the United States indiscriminately intercepting the communications of allied nations are all violations of international law.

What makes this even graver is that these violations are being justified in the name of 'technological progress.' Every time a new technology emerges, the logic that existing legal and ethical standards can be ignored gains currency.

The Annihilation of Human Dignity

The fundamental problem with AI surveillance systems is that they reduce human beings to numbers and data. The Lavender system rates people on a scale from 1 to 100. China's social credit system similarly assigns scores to every aspect of individual behavior.

Human beings possess equal dignity from birth. It is an absolute value that cannot be evaluated or calculated by any standard. AI surveillance systems deny this dignity and view people only through the lens of efficiency and profit.

What is even graver is that these scores become the criteria separating life from death. A high score in the Lavender system means you die. A low score in China's social credit system means you are socially isolated. We have entered an era in which a score assigned by a machine determines a person's fate.

A Warning Bell for the End of Democracy

The spread of AI surveillance systems poses a fundamental threat to the core values of democracy. Freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, and the right to privacy, the rights that form the foundation of a democratic society, are all in danger.