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                                        <p class="podcast-number mb-0">Episode 5</p>
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                                        <h1 class="podcast-title">Bolivia: From the Bottom Up: Using Grassroots
                                            approaches to push for data protection laws and privacy-respecting policies
                                            by Privacy is Global
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                                    <p>Produced by Internet Bolivia.Org</p>

                                    <p>In 2018, thousands of Bolivians found themselves in databases identified as
                                        members of political parties they had never registered for- in the midst of
                                        political tension, sensitivity and polarization. These events forced the
                                        conversation around data protections and the need for better data governance
                                        around the information people share (and overshare) online and also offline.
                                        Experiences like this have catalyzed interest in these topics and helped
                                        Internet Bolivia.Org push for a more inclusive discussion around privacy and the
                                        need for a comprehensive data protection law. This means that advocacy efforts
                                        around data protection and privacy are not only taking place in the traditional
                                        circles of power in the capital, but also through a more grassroots and local
                                        “bottom up” approach. This strategy takes advantage of Bolivia’s unique
                                        decentralized system, in which decentralized and autonomous territorial
                                        entities- from the departmental, regional, municipal and indigenous- can make
                                        their own rules and in some cases, even have their own justice systems. In this
                                        way, activists can work at these levels to generate policy proposals and norms
                                        around data protection, access and privacy that could potentially build interest
                                        and “trickle up” to the national level.
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                                    <h2 class="podcast-section">Credits</h2>

                                    <p>
                                        Research and Interviews: Esther Mamani, Laura Vidal<br />
                                        Concept and script: Laura Vidal & Esther Mamani<br />
                                        Interviews: Esther Mamani, Diandra Céspedes and Cristian León<br />
                                        With the voices of Dana Floberg and Charles Antoine<br />
                                        Editing & Mixing: Laura Vidal & Ergi Shkëlzeni<br />
                                        Visual Design: Ura Design<br />
                                        Research and Production: Laura Schwartz-Henderson, Dana Floberg, and Laura
                                        Vidal<br />
                                        Executive Producers for Privacy is Global: Laura Schwartz-Henderson and Laura
                                        Vidal<br />
                                        Sponsored by Internews and <a href="https://us.boell.org/en/homepage"
                                            target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung
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[Lau] In today’s episode we will be talking to our friends at Internet Bolivia who have been working hard over the past few years to push for better data protection laws in a time of significant political polarization. We’ll talk to them about the events that have forced Bolivians to pay attention to data and privacy, and also about the process and the discussions behind the data protection law they’re promoting. 
Laura: Internet Bolivia has been one of the few organizations in the country working on these issues for many years, and it has only been recently that data protection has had traction with the public. We’ve talked on previous episodes about how hard it is to care about privacy if it is only an abstract concept, but once data is leaked or abused on a widespread scale, people start to care. Remember what happened in Ecuador when the data of nearly the whole country was leaked? Finally there was political will to pass the Ecuadorian data protection law.  
Lau: Well the same has been true in Bolivia- For a long time people didn’t understand the need for better data protection, but lately there have been more and more public issues dealing with leaked data and data misuse- and these instances have had significant consequences for the public.
[Laura] In Bolivia privacy protection is a constitutional right, but there’s no law to provide proper mechanisms, specify violations, or indicate sanctions. And more and more, there is demand from citizens to prevent harms caused by misuse and abuse of data.
Lau: Now, when we think of bills, the first thing that comes to mind are groups of lawyers, work tables, negotiations, legislators, assemblies ... In this case, that wouldn’t be the whole story. The Internet Bolivia Foundation has been working to capitalize on public interest in protecting their data and increasing political will for a comprehensive data protection bill at the national level, but the fascinating bit here is that they’re not only working on a bill that would set policies from the top; they have also taken advantage of Bolivia’s unique decentralized system, working with municipalities, local departments, and citizens to set the agenda in the discussion around data protection, from the bottom up.
[Introductory music]
[Laura] If you are here, it is because you care about personal data and privacy. Welcome to Privacy is Global, a podcast made in collaboration with Internews and the Heinrich Boell Foundation. I am Laura, Laura Schwartz Henderson, back in front of the mic... 
[Lau] And I'm also Laura, Laura Vidal, coming back from a virtual visit to Bolivia with our friends at InternetBolivia.Org. This is our third episode in Latin America. Our first took us to Brazil, with our friends at Coding Rights in which we explored the inequalities and the oppressions that hide in plain sight with facial recognition... Our previous episode took us to Ecuador, with the FCD, Fundación Ciudadanía y Desarrollo, which told us about the immense process of collaboration and dialogue that led to an original law on personal data.
[Laura] And today we are here to talk with and about our partners at Internet Bolivia.org about their work promoting data protection and a national bill. If you haven't heard the other episodes of Privacy is Global, don't miss them. Most of the episodes are in English, but the ones we have about issues in Latin America, like this one, are also in Spanish… And of course, that also means you will find a Portuguese version of the Coding Rights episode. This podcast is made in collaboration with numerous organizations around the world dedicated to advocating for the defense of data and privacy as fundamental rights- with special contributions from the Heinrich Boell Foundation and Internews’ ADAPT project & partners.
[Music fades out]
1st "conversation" - Lau and Laura
[Lau] At the beginning we talked about events that shake us up and make us understand, on a personal level, things that were somewhat abstract before ... It seems that something similar happens with data protection, don’t you think? When we find out our data has been mistreated- all of a sudden we care… Or rather, we’re forced to care.
[Laura] The impact of poor data protection practices really hits home for many people when they’re victims of a data breach, or when their data is misused in a way that impacts their everyday lives. In the case of Bolivia, in 2018 thousands of people discovered they had been registered as members of political parties without their consent. Not only did these registrations often fail to represent the individual’s actual political views, but these data mistakes and data leaks also came amidst increased political tensions and growing polarization in Bolivia…
Lau:  If you don't already know, in Bolivia in 2019, there was a contested re-election of the leftist President Evo Morales, who was the country's first indigenous head of state who has held power since 2006 and wanted to run for yet another term. In the years leading up to this election there had been mounting political polarization and during the election it all came to a head and exploded. The opposition claimed the elections were fraudulent and installed an interim president, opposition leader Jeanine Áñez- something that Morales denounced as a coup. Throughout 2020, there was political uncertainty, protests, arrests, and to make matters worse- the covid pandemic. Only in October of the year [...] did elections take place; and they were won by the leftist party and Morales' successor Luis Arce. In the time since, there have been arrest of political oponents and charges of sedition, terrorism and conspiracy.
Laura: That’s an extremely quick synopsis of an extremely complicated and fraught political situation, but this is just to make clear that polarization has been a significant problem from many years and party identification is extremely sensitive in this political moment- and therefore any leaks of this data and public misclassifications can have really serious consequences for individuals. 
[Insert - tweets]
[tweet 3] I demand an explanation! ... On the “Yo Participo” page I appear as a member of the Left Revolutionary Front (FRI). I must definitively clarify that I was never a member of any party, nor am I currently a member.
[Insert] [tuit 4] Turns out I am also a member of a political party. I never registered! I just found out that I will "participate" in the #Primaries farce. I demand sanctions and an audit of the membership registry because it seems that there are thousands of us in the same situation.

[End of insert]
[Lau] What we heard just now are just some of the enraged tweets that people posted online. The conversation can be found under the hashtag “falsa militancia”, in English “false political affiliation”. These  people were trying to understand how their data was misused to falsely register them for political parties they did not consent to join. They found out through websites such as “Yo participo”, and to correct the error, which was vital for many Bolivians, especially those looking to work in electoral courts, they had to seek certificates of non-membership in the courts of justice. How complicated could that  be, you may ask. Well, quite… Obtaining a certificate of non-membership is money and paperwork. Esther Mamani, Internet Bolivia’s communications coordinator can tell us more  
[Esther - Dana] It is a whole process, like so many bureaucratic procedures in Bolivia. A lot of people had to wait for hours, queuing at the departmental electoral courts for hours, to be able to disaffiliate. Perhaps in another context, despite being an abuse, many people would not even have bothered to do the procedure, but given the highly polarized political context, being registered in one or the other party can make it difficult for you to access a job, for example, or even keep your job. Now, this was in November 2018. From that moment until now the database has not been updated. But beyond all of this, the question is, how did these lists end up inside political parties databases? Where did the names, identity card numbers and signatures come from? It seems that there are huge databases with people’s data for sale, just like you would see in a store. And we’re asked to give away data constantly... [...] We’re talking about daily errands. A very Bolivian example is photocopies. They’re now a tradition in Bolivian bureaucracy, especially photocopies of your national ID. They ask for photocopies everywhere, for anything, and people don’t know what is being done with all that data, who shares it, who cross-references it with other data… 
[Lau] So there’s this need for people to be more aware and have official means to protect data...
[Esther - Dana] Exactly. That’s why we’re advocating for a data protection law. The Constitution takes into account respect for privacy and intimacy, but we need a lot more. And all this also happens through a process of increasing awareness, to understand that many of the problems we are seeing today, including problems related to handling bank accounts, with annoying advertisements, with spearfishing messages or even the publication of intimate images as a form of violence against women, are privacy and data protection problems ...
[Lau] Diandra Céspedes, a personal data protection officer at the InternetBolivia.org Foundation, had more to say about the importance of a data protection law.
[Interview with Diandra]
[Diandra - Skyler] It is possible that  because we don’t have a data protection law, that civil society and the authorities are sometimes ignorant of the process and importance of the handling of personal data ... So, perhaps among the difficulties we have had is that the issue is still usually poorly understood and very technical, so we must find the easiest way to explain that it is related to fundamental rights with human rights and that finally our personal data is constantly exposed.
[Lau] People tend to be resistant around these matters and say “why should I care?” What would you tell them? What makes a data protection law useful? 
[Diandra - Skyler] What doesn’t make a data protection law useful, we should rather ask. It is very important to have a data protection law... We need to understand that this digital age is also the age of data. It is even said that personal data is the new oil because many things can be done with data analysis and with the handling of personal data; on the positive side, companies, for example, can often improve services. What’s also important to  understand is that these companies make profits off of our personal data. Then there’s the data that’s being handled by public institutions. They have basic information about us, like our name and age, but also sensitive information, such as health status... Not having a specific regulation translates to a higher possibility of leaks, or unauthorized exposure of personal data with all that this implies. There could be minor incidents and very important ones. We also need to think of those among the population who are vulnerable... Having a concrete specific regulation will allow us to at least have a guarantee that the way in which data is handled has security mechanisms and that there will be sanctions if people’s data is mishandled…  
[Laura] What does the Constitution say around privacy? 
[Diandra - Skyler] Our constitution has something that’s quite positive; according to the constitution we have a right to privacy and intimacy, but there’s another interesting aspect; known as “information self-determination”. That means that we’re the owners of our own data, that we have the right to know who handles our data, and we are the ones who decide what can be done with it. So, there is a framework, protected also by international treaties, but we still need a law that can regulate what can be done in this context, and how to enforce these rights.
[Lau] When these rights have been violated, none of those responsible have faced any kind of consequences. In the false militancy example, there were around 35,000 people affected but no one faced any kind of sanction. What does the law you propose contemplate around this?
[Diandra - Skyler] We do not have a specific proposal yet. We should see what penal figure can be used in which case. In the case of false militancies, for example, there are other aspects that are important, like forgery of signatures, for example. Some crimes can be identified in matters linked to the processing of personal data, such as, for example, the unauthorized exposure of personal data or identity theft. In the last version of the bill we were working on, there will be no criminal sanctions, only administrative ones. There would be different levels of infraction, with different levels of sanction.  
[Laura] Should institutions also be sanctioned? And how? 
[Diandra - Skyler] Indeed, yes. Institutions can be responsible entities and as such could be sanctioned. There could be monetary sanctions, for example. Institutions could be fined depending on the type of leak, or misuse of data. As I said before, there are different levels of severity. From not having informed consent, to selling information that you did not have the right to sell. Institutions could be the responsible party in many of these cases, and as such, they could indeed be fined…
[Transition music]
2nd conversation - Esther and Lau
[Lau] So, this is where the work of Internet Bolivia.org comes in to create a data protection bill… They are engaging in this kind of advocacy at the national level and working with experts and policymakers to draft legislation that could prevent something like the falsa militancia scandal, and provide citizens with a way to fight back data leaks and abuses... But they’re also working on another strategy as well- something, like we said before, going more from the ‘bottom up’... 
This more grassroots strategy has to do with Bolivia’s unique political system, which gives municipalities more authority and autonomy than in many other countries. Cristian León, Internet Bolivia’s Executive Director, explained:
[Cristian - Bed/John] A particularity of the political configuration of the Bolivian State is its level of decentralization at the plurinational level, this is interesting since there are different levels of decentralized and autonomous territorial entities, from the departmental, the regional, the Municipal and finally the indigenous. These territorial authorities can make their own rules and in some cases, such as the indigenous autonomies, they can even have their own justice systems. That is, something called "plural justice." This opens an opportunity because at that level it is possible to generate unique proposals for digital inclusion, data protection, access to information, among other issues that are normally addressed from digital rights. As an organization we aim, although we are still developing that, we aim to generate intercultural frameworks regarding digital rights, taking advantage of this plurinational approach. We imagine, for example, how indigenous communities can understand data protection and Internet access, will it be the same as the modern Western approach? Is it alternative, is it different? How can these populations also be part of the debate, even proposing visions of how these digital rights are understood today.
[Lau] Esther also spoke about the particular strengths of working with municipalities to advocate for data protection:
[Esther - Dana] We are working not only with the groups of experts that typically advocate for a bill, but we are also approaching the municipalities, which in the case of Bolivia, have autonomy, which implies that they can  make their own laws. This is very important so that the regulations proposed are consistent with people's experiences. In this regard, the municipalities are very important, because they have closer contacts with the citizens they serve. They know the locality’s complaints, the challenges, the advantages ... And for this it is also important to think about rural areas and the data that go beyond the digital world.
[Laura] Data protection that isn’t digital? That sounds counter-intuitive.
[Lau] But it’s a key part of InternetBolivia’s work, particularly rural municipalities. Let's go back to Diandra for more.
[Music transition]
[Diandra - Skyler] Here you have to understand that sometimes when we talk about the issue of personal data, we tend to believe that it is only the digital part; but there’s another part that happens offline or let's say, physically. We leave data in different places and this would also involve rural areas, because for example, Bolivia’s General Personal Identification Service and the Civic Registry Service, they have our information including our name, our address, and our telephone. We are also talking about the processing of personal data that comes from other sources that are not necessarily digital, or connected to the internet. The law we’re proposing also aims to regulate the use of such data, to ensure that these public and private entities that handle our data, handle and treat them properly [...] People share data when they do their taxes, or their registry. So, the strategy is to bring these conversations (that are often seen as characteristically important in urban areas) to rural areas.
Laura: And  this also means that Internet Bolivia is doing a ton when it comes to building expertise and knowledge on these issues within these municipalities and with local policymakers. 
[Diandra - Skyer] Many of these departments and municipalities don’t have the mechanisms to understand and deal with these issues yet –probably because we do not have a law–, but they do understand that these issues are important, and that it is important to tackle them, as part of civil society. For example, they told us quite a bit about scams on WhatsApp; or that sometimes young people upload too many photos to the internet and they see this as potentially dangerous… So, perhaps they’re not fully aware, but they do understand the importance of these issues, they have an idea of their importance.  Both people and the authorities have an idea of it all, but are still unsure of the ways they could handle these issues, what mechanisms they can put to use, etc... 
Back to the conversation with Esther and Lau
[Lau] This relates to something that we have talked about on previous episodes- one of the most important challenges is educational; and it also has to do with making conversations about privacy, security and data occupy more spaces, making and people in general, discuss and debate. Experts say that the most important task at the time of working on a bill and advocating for it, is putting the debate on the table, making people talk about it, giving their opinions...
[Laura] This is exactly what the work with the municipalities is about.  As Esther explained…
[Esther - Dana] The idea is to promote the law at the national level, with regulations that come from the State and the rest of the population, but with the municipalities we work on effective digital inclusion and approaches to electronic government so that the movement also goes from the bottom up.
[Lau] The question now is… What does this bottom-up work consist of? Here’s Cristian:
[Cristian - Bed/John] We have started with an assessment regarding how municipal governments are treating the protection of personal data and we have also done a study on the competencies that they may have in this matter, taking into account that of course, there are issues that necessarily come at the national level and others at the subnational level. From that we have developed a prototype legislation proposal ... a proposal anchored in the regulations and from that we have also generated guides for municipal authorities so that, at the same time that they have this prototype of law, they can adapt it to their own local contexts, why they are doing it, how they can strengthen it, and what extra elements they can include among others, right? That is to say, a guide that can give you more ideas on how to proceed, but of course this is not only about the authorities and representatives having to be convinced. Actually, it is with the people, it is the people that you have to convince. That is why a large part of our work has been to get closer to people whose data, or those of their loved ones, are more exposed. For example, we have met with parents' associations, associations of people with HIV, LGTBI groups, among others so that, first, these people know that there are ways to protect their information or protect their loved ones, they can also know that There are rights and from that they can help us and also speak with the authorities, and help us convince the authorities so that together we can promote these much-needed regulations. So a bottom-up approach.
[Lau] And the challenges?
[Cristian - Bed/John] We have had a lot of challenges. Perhaps challenges that we initially confused. Thus, at first we believed that it would be difficult to introduce the issue of personal data protection and make it a common currency. But, for example, in one of our first socialization meetings, which we held in the Neighborhood Council of El Alto -El Alto is a city known for being one of the largest cities with informality in Bolivia, with the highest poverty among other problems. When we met with the neighborhood council, there were no technicians in the room, no experts, they were mostly parents, shopkeepers, people who live from day to day. At first we had doubts if this topic was going to be of interest to them. But as soon as we made the presentation of the bill, there was significant participation from several of the people who were present. 
[Lau] And finally, what is inspiring Internet Bolivia to pursue this work, this bottom up strategy? 
[Cristian - Bed/John] Why go from the bottom up? The debate on technologies and their uses is a debate that has been held in groups of experts and from a technical point of view, when it is the common people who are being most affected by digitization. As long as the discussion is only technical, it is exclusive, and beyond that, it serves a certain type of interest. We know that there are lobbies of technology companies, government interests engaged in shaping this type of legislation. But what are people really interested in? How to protect people's rights? People's information, what is really at stake in the digital age. That is, for us, one of the battles that we have to fight. More than even having a law. It is important that the most vulnerable groups that are being affected are those who demand greater protection of information; and not only NGOs, foundations or these groups of experts. When we see people themselves being the ones talking about the subject, analyzing and making demands to protect their rights and the privacy of their data, we will know that we have done something right.
[Laura] And that is the end of our show! 
Lau: Thanks so much to our friends at Internet Bolivia for making this episode possible. Our very special thanks to Esther Mamani, Cristian Leon, and Diandra Céspedes. 
Privacy is Global is a podcast made in collaboration with Internews and the Heinrich Boell Foundation. It is produced by Laura Vidal, Dana Floberg and myself and we mix with Ura Design. Follow us on social media! You can find us @InternewsADAPT on Twitter and @Internews_ADAPT on Instagram. These are the spaces in which you’ll find more and more material about the podcast, its episodes and the organizations that make it possible. You can also contact us there, and if you’re listening to us on Anchor, you can leave a voice message. Thanks for listening! 
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                                        <p class="podcast-number mb-0">Episode 4</p>
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                                        <h1 class="podcast-title">Ecuador: From a Country-wide Data Breach to one of the
                                            most innovative privacy laws in the region
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                                    <p>Produced by Fundación Ciudadanía y Desarrollo</p>

                                    <p>In 2019, Ecuador went through the biggest data breach in its history, with the
                                        personal data of most citizens leaked online. The consequences are still
                                        difficult to measure, but the gravity of the situation pushed everyone to act-
                                        FINALLY privacy advocates who had been pushing for data protection legislation
                                        for years were able to capitalize on this event to get a law passed in May of
                                        this year. The best part of the story, –and the one we’re telling in this
                                        episode– is, what happened behind the scenes: how privacy advocates and experts
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                                        violations but to also promote a culture of privacy in the country.
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                                    <h2 class="podcast-section">Credits</h2>

                                    <p>
                                        Research and Interviews: Rircardo Chica, Laura Vidal, Laura
                                        Schwartz-Henderson<br />
                                        Concept and script: Laura Vidal & Ricardo Chica<br />
                                        Interviews: Daniela Macías and Matthew Armijos Burneo. Con extractos de La Regla
                                        del Pomodoro, de Fundamedios, en los que participan Lorena Naranjo, Frank LaRue
                                        and Luis Enríquez. With the voices of Ben Whitehead, Gina Helfrich and John
                                        Remensperger<br />
                                        Editing & Mixing: Laura Vidal & Ergi Shkëlzeni<br />
                                        Visual Design: Ura Design<br />
                                        Executive Producers for Privacy is Global: Laura Schwartz-Henderson and Laura
                                        Vidal<br />
                                        Sponsored by Internews and <a href="https://us.boell.org/en/homepage"
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                                        <h1 class="podcast-title">Pushing Towards Data Protection: An Advocate's Guide
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                                            Privacy is Global
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                                    <p>Produced by Internews for the series Privacy is Global</p>

                                    <p>We know that these days everything is ‘datafied’: our shopping habits, our daily
                                        commutes, our relationships and interactions- companies and governments alike
                                        are collecting servers and servers of information about us- but why should we
                                        care about the policy and politics of data governance? What really is ‘data
                                        protection’? What is at stake? Who are the players? How can we ensure our data
                                        is respected and that the most egregious abuses of our data are protected
                                        against? And how do we make these issues, often highly technical and legal,
                                        compelling for the average citizen?
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                                    <p>In this episode of Privacy is Global, Laura Vidal and Laura Schwartz-Henderson
                                        dive deep on the history of data protection policymaking and privacy advocacy
                                        priorities in countries around the world through conversations with experts and
                                        activists from Ghana, Nigeria, Bolivia, Brazil and Kenya. We discuss the
                                        importance of cultivating cultures of privacy not just to build the political
                                        will to pass comprehensive data protection legislation but also to ensure that
                                        these laws are adequately enforced.
                                    </p>

                                    <h2 class="podcast-section">Credits</h2>

                                    <p>
                                        Research and Interviews: Laura Schwartz-Henderson, Laura Vidal, Teki Akuetteh
                                        Falconer<br />
                                        Concept and script: Laura Vidal & Laura Schwartz-Henderson<br />
                                        Interviews: Gbenga Sesan, Eliana Quiroz, Bianca Kremer, Victor Kapiyo, Teki
                                        Akuetteh Falconer<br />
                                        Editing & Mixing: Laura Vidal & Ergi Shkëlzeni<br />
                                        Visual Design: Ura Design<br />
                                        Executive Producers for Privacy is Global: Laura Schwartz-Henderson and Laura
                                        Vidal<br />
                                        Sponsored by Internews and <a href="https://us.boell.org/en/homepage"
                                            target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung
                                            Washington</a>
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Laura Henderson:
There are many stories about data that we know without knowing their stories about data. That's part of the amazing work of the organizations participating in this podcast. They're making us realize how much of what we already know, use, learn and share is related to our data. 

Laura Vidal:
There are many examples of this, from simple daily life activities to the darkest moments of history. Have you ever thought of the Holocaust as a story, a horrific story about data? It is. It's a story of punch cards and carefully made lists. Old School data collection. 

Laura Henderson:
It was these registries of residents that enabled Nazis to carry out massacres with vicious effectiveness not only in Germany but also in the neighboring countries they occupied.

Laura Vidal:
Take the example of the Netherlands. The registry is made before and during the Nazi occupation enabled the process. Before the occupation 100,000 Jews lived in Holland. During the German occupation over 100,000 were deported, and only a little over 5000 survived. France went through the same process of data collection and deportation of its Jewish citizens. Today, the French state is still reluctant to collect ethnic data of both residents and citizens.

Laura Henderson:
When Germany thinks of data, the Holocaust loons, the Nazi's rise to power in the 1930s led to domination over information technologies. This meant that the punch cards and the list that had been carefully taken door to door asking people for their nationalities, their native language, religion, and profession were counted by the early data processors made by IBM's German subsidiary at the time.

Laura Vidal:
GDPR. The European General Data Protection Regulation, one of the best known and most referenced legislation in privacy around the world is a result of this history.

Laura Henderson:
Data collection and human rights abuses are not exclusive to Europe and its history. Of course, there is the history of colonial powers, collecting data and using that data to subject populations and countries around the world. In Rwanda, after the Belgian departure from the country, authorities decided to continue the colonial practice to include ethnic group identities on ID cards with rigid racial group identities. This facilitated the identification of victims during the Rwandan genocide, allowing for scaled and systematized killings in a horrifying way.

Laura Vidal:
More recently, the Rohingya in Myanmar and Bangladesh have been subjected to violence facilitated by registries and ID cards. In 2016, Muslim residents and citizens of the United States held their collective breath, when yet another initiative to open a registry of their communities was in the works. The initiative didn't come to fruition but it came to show how data can make us vulnerable when power changes hands. This is something we're seeing now as so many Afghans worry about their white database left behind by both the US Army and the Afghan government are now in the hands of the Taliban.

Laura Henderson:
In a time in which we create data by just being alive and just breathing there's a lot that needs to be discussed about data protection, how the politics and policies around data play out in different parts of the world. How technology changes our perception of what is private, who are the actors abusing our data, and who is pushing to protect it.

Laura Vidal:
Welcome to Privacy is Global, brought to you by Internews and the [unintelligible: 03:46] foundation. We talk about privacy, data protection, advocacy, and legislation guided by civil society organizations around the world. I'm Laura, Laura Vidal.

Laura Henderson:
And I'm also Laura, but Laura Schwartz Henderson. In our first episode, we discussed data protection in Brazil thanks to coding rights, and how facial recognition is facilitating oppression.

Teki Akuetteh:
You know, I'm just doing my job as I was programmed to do.

Laura Vidal:
And the last time we explored what issues regarding privacy and data protection were keeping our friends at paradigm initiative in Nigeria quite busy.

Bianca Kremer  
When we're talking about data protection, people might not take it as seriously. It's like, okay, what's that.

Laura Henderson:
What about today? 

Laura Vidal:
Today we are going back to basics. 

Laura Henderson:
So, as we said in our first episode, Privacy is Global wants to take its listeners on an exploration of data privacy and data protection around the world. And to do that we work in collaboration with many wonderful organizations to tell the stories of data politics in their countries and the strategies they are developing to protect data and push for more and better legislation.

Laura Vidal:
And we know how easy it is for this conversation to go well, everywhere. So we started the podcast in our first episode commenting on what privacy was to us, and why we think it is an ever-evolving concept that means so much to different people. A concept that has transformed over time and cultural contexts.

Laura Henderson:
Today, we want to dive into this complexity a little more, and to discuss briefly how these ideas, these perceptions, and the realities of data shape policy conversations. And also how legislation and regulation in this area could encourage people to be more aware and take more control over their data. This is way less technical than you may think. Many would be surprised. But beyond policy memos, legislative drafts, legal discussions, regulatory capacity, and technological complexity, our conversation has to do a lot with culture, political participation, and with how people can choose to have a real voice regarding how their information can be used by powerful actors, such as corporations and the state.

Laura Vidal:
GDPR has been a reference for many countries. But as you know now, it comes from a very particular history, and a particular way in which data is understood and privacy is embraced. This gets complicated as GDPR gets adapted to other regional contexts. And as we all come to understand data and privacy in ways that are locally and also globally.

Teki Akuetteh:
Model laws are good. But invariably, every country has its nuances. And we have to think about adopting these laws to meet those local nuances as well, which is very prevalent across Africa. 




Laura Vidal:
This is Teki Akuetteh, the first Executive director of Ghana's data protection commission. She has been significantly involved in the first few years of implementing Ghana's Data Protection Act. One of the first in Africa.

Teki Akuetteh:
Every law has to have its context. Let me just give an example. Ghana adopted Data Protection Law because as a country, as with most African countries, we were positioning ourselves to look at the impact of ICT in accelerated development. One of the key things that you need to consider to create that enabling environment is to look at putting in place an enabling legal environment that can facilitate trust. Ghana's law has one of the very peculiar provisions, which was particularly driven by the business process outsourcing ecosystem. Because at the time, the country had positioned itself to economically benefit from the business process outsourcing environment.

Laura Vidal:
And so one of the questions that had to be asked was, do we have in place enough laws to facilitate our engagement with other countries? Let's take the example of call centers.

Laura Vidal:
Privacy and data have become such a topic of discussion globally. A topic that forces to see social and historical backgrounds that dominant groups have pushed to invisibility.

Bianca Kremer  
It is important to mention that there has never been so much talk about privacy here. But not only about privacy, but data protection as well, which is the basic but also essential ingredient into building a culture of privacy in Brazilian society, which I think is the most important thing on this subject.

Laura Vidal:
This is Bianca Kremer from coding rights, telling us about Brazil, where there's been legislation that passed after a very difficult debate. The legislation took a lot of inspiration from GDPR, the European piece of legislation. The use of data and the protection of freedoms in Brazil has a very complicated history connected to the history of Brazil's inequalities. This was very much part of our first episode, by the way, where we talked about the social structures that ended up being the backbone supporting algorithms. This is as much about tech as it is about history. Here's Bianca again.



Bianca Kremer  
We are a nation with colonial heritage, and it is very important to point out that legal assets such as freedom, autonomy, and privacy have been historically constructed quite differently in our society, an amount of inequality of classes, and access to products and services of all kinds. And with the advent of emerging technologies, this scenario becomes even more evident. It is not wrong to say I believe that some of the main debates involving privacy data protection here involve the protection of fundamental rights and substantial equality.

Laura Henderson:
So this is about precessions, mentalities. That's why it's so important that people, in general, can grasp the importance of privacy in a moment in which globally so much information about us is being extracted and put to use or potential use. It seems that people's awareness about privacy and their attitudes about privacy is key, especially if we want legislation to work. Here's Victor Kapiyo, from KICTANet in Kenya.

Victor Kapiyo:
The mindsets are very important, and changing the attitudes towards privacy amongst members of the public, regulators, and government that I think over and above all, you can have strong laws. But when people have poor attitudes towards respecting privacy, then we're not going to be making progress. In Swahili, the word for privacy is [unintelligible: 11:15], which means secret. And the challenge usually is that people ask you if you don't have a secret, then why do you have to hide? So dealing with changing that mindset of the public to accept that it is okay to have privacy, and it is normal, as opposed to giving away all the information and people requesting for information without any regulation.

Laura Vidal:
Kenya also has a data protection law passed in 2019. And facing many challenges in practice. A data Commissioner was appointed almost a year after the law was enacted. The issues the Commissioner needs to confront are important. There are issues of implementation of institution independence, we'll get back to that. However, one of the most important challenges comes as Victor explained with the public conception of privacy. And Kenya is not alone in this. Nigeria also faces complicated conversations regarding privacy.

Laura Henderson:
Nigeria has a data protection regulation, but activists have been pushing to pass a comprehensive data protection law, while also working with the private sector, government, and citizens to promote a better understanding of what data protection means and why it is important.

Gbenga Sesan:
One challenge in itself is the dominant perception of privacy as a Western idea, which it is not. And I think that is something that civil society and other stakeholders must walk on.


Laura Henderson:
That was Gbenga Sesan from paradigm initiative from Nigeria, a country where enforcing data protection and regulatory oversight is extremely complicated. As it's often the government, that's the perpetrator of data leaks and collects a huge amount of data on its citizens for a variety of purposes.

Gbenga Sesan:
In Nigeria, there are at least 6 government agencies, almost identical [unintelligible: 13:11] biometric data of citizens for various things, from voting to bank operations, to driver's licenses, to international passports. And so you have all of this data. And also don't forget, Nigeria is about 200 million people. And there's this massive data collection going on about 50 million so far have been registered on what is called the National Identity number, which is run by the National Identity [inaudible: 13:37]. So all of this is happening at the same time, while Nigeria does not have a data privacy or protection law. 

Laura Vidal:
Let's jump the Atlantic and go to Bolivia, where organizations like Internet Bolivia worked through 2019 to create draft data protection legislation and mobilize policymakers only to see privacy issues become much less of a priority, both in terms of legislation and in the public conversation. Bolivia's political and social landscape has been quite polarized and complicated. From days of civil protests that followed the disputed 2019 Bolivian general election to the complicated resignation of President Evo Morales that came after. Bolivia had on top of it all the covid 19 pandemic. Eliana Quiroz from internet Bolivia explains how this context can be even more challenging given the lack of awareness around privacy among Bolivians.

Eliana Quiroz:
Neither the government nor the civil society or the companies know much about it or not much about it with that [unintelligible: 14:57]. Because when talking with officials and authorities and civil society and also the companies. They have concerns, but they don't label these concerns as privacy issues. For example, when talking with people or authorities, they tell us about some cases that they receive daily. Online harassment, for example, or threads or access to private information without consent. And they understand there's a problem there, but they don't see it as a privacy issue.

Laura Henderson:
Let's add yet another complication, security. A lot of governments talk about data privacy as something that could limit what they can do in terms of security, and the tradeoffs between safety and security and personal privacy and civil liberties, which ends up being a pretty difficult conversation and a tricky negotiation between governments and civil society. Here's Gbenga again explaining how we need to.



Gbenga Sesan:
Break this dichotomy between security and privacy. As you may know, in Nigeria, of course, a few other African countries we've had [unintelligible: 16:02] security challenges, either with terrorism or with increased crime and things like that. And so the security agencies always talk about the fact that it's security first. And if you've mentioned privacy, the question is, what do you have to hide? If you have nothing to hide? Why are you talking about privacy? But interesting enough security and privacy work hand in hand.

Laura Vidal:
And here's Bianca Kremer from Coding rights, once again, highlighting how this false dichotomy is playing out in Brazil.

Bianca Kremer  
We are led to believe that there is no harm in giving up privacy in favor of, I suppose, collective security, or something like that, and of having nothing to hide. And this goes against the construction of the culture of privacy itself. And I was wondering, we need to define data protection here in Brazil, especially, is a fundamental right. And I think it's not clear yet for the population. It is important for human dignity. And this is why I believe that when we understand the importance of data protection in these terms we'll be less concerned about the legislation and tax itself, but the construction of collective importance of the protection of this field of human interactions.

Laura Henderson:
So we need a culture shift to get people to care and pass legislation. Is passing privacy legislation the end goal we're all working for? For every country in the world to pass human rights-respecting data protection legislation. Well, yes, that would be great. But that's not it. Once legislation is passed, there is so much more that needs to be considered when it comes to how regulations are administered and enforced.

Laura Vidal:
So what does it mean to have regulatory capacity?

Laura Henderson:
Think about it. These laws are complicated. And what is possible from a technological perspective is always changing. As we innovate and data processing capacities increase, meaning that you need a strong and nimble regulatory ecosystem capable of implementing and interpreting complex data protection legislation and ensuring powerful actors comply with the law.

Laura Vidal:
Gbenga spoke about it. He's focusing on Nigeria, but that's something that can be applied to many other regional contexts. What happens with regulatory bodies is very political, which means political circumstances and crises are also important and complicated aspects of regulation in practice. Here's Gbenga.



Gbenga Sesan:
So there's a politics of geopolitical zones in Nigeria. A lot of federal appointments have to be balanced based on 6 geopolitical zones. And so when you want to have a new agency those zones [unintelligible: 18:58] represented, so produces the commissioner, who produces the deputy commissioner and things like that. And I worry that could lead to a balkanization of the institution itself. And of course, there is a competing government interest, different government agencies who have interest between the justice ministry, communications ministry on all that. But I hope that we can manage those interests. Stakeholders are also called for an independent institution, a Data Protection Authority that is independent. Because many of the violations, as I said earlier, have been perpetrated by government institutions. And I'll give one practical example of where a government institution was supposed to be corrected by another government institution. So the Immigration Service released the information of someone who applied for a passport on Twitter before that citizen was even handed the passport including sensitive information including the biometric page of that passport. And then the [unintelligible: 20:00] agency said that they will take care of the case. But unfortunately, that didn't make any progress. So what you have is a violation of privacy rights by the government, by private sector institutions, and by other institutions. And because there is no data privacy and protection law no one gets punished. And that leads, of course, to a state of data abuse impunity.

Laura Henderson:
And this is something that Victor is seeing in Kenya as well.

Victor Kapiyo:
I think the first major challenge that is there is for the data commissioner's office to assert its independence. Currently, they don't have a big budget enough to roll out all its functions. They still have a very skeleton staff. And given the magnitude of responsibility, they will not be able to conduct their functions appropriately. They also don't have an office, they are just being housed by the ICT regulator, the communications authority. So the task they have is rolling out the complaint management and enforcement compliance mechanism to tackle the rather carelessness and recklessness in how data is being handled across different sectors because that is the task they have.

Laura Vidal:
And Bia in Brazil.



Bianca Kremer  
One of our biggest challenges is the autonomy of this authority because it is linked to the presidency of the Republic and we are living in a political moment of great polarization and conservatism.

Laura Henderson:
Polarization. That's an important aspect of this discussion. We have social challenges, but also political ones. And polarized politics can distract from real debates and hijacked efforts to build and enforce legislation. To build a holistic legal and regulatory regime civil society needs to negotiate with government entities. And these bodies are also the ones who collect and use a great deal of citizen data and are often guilty of abusing and failing to protect this data.

Eliana Quiroz:
I guess the polarization in Bolivia is also a challenge because we are trying to push multi-stakeholder debate and even the government itself is polarized. So they don't legitimize all the stakeholders to invite them to the discussion. And as the multi-stakeholders don't have enough information, they don't push the right to participate in the debate.

Gbenga Sesan:
But say that we citizens and the civic sector, and I'm biased here. 

Laura Vidal:
We're now listening to Gbenga.

Gbenga Sesan:
We need to pay a lot more attention to defining what will happen, especially what happened with 2020 being the year where a lot more data was collected, there was a lot more argument for data collection by governments and things like that. There were so many compromises in terms of data management, and data governance. We need to define what the new normal will be. The new normal cannot be the flagrant abuse of data privacy. The new normal and not be "the supervision of allegedly independent institutions" by supervising ministries. We have to make sure that the new normal is where data privacy is respected, especially with more data being collected by various stakeholders, including the government, the private sector, and others. And we are the ones that can define this new normal in various countries that we live in.

Laura Vidal:
Of course, none of these can happen without participation with all of those actors mentioned by Gbenga. Policymakers, regulators, companies, lawyers, and activists, but also citizens. We have to move from a regime of normalized data abuse to normalize data protection and engagement to prevent data abuse. 


Laura Henderson:
And here's why legislation and the ways it is designed to be implemented is also important. And also why we need to think differently about the approaches we take in our advocacy and the groups of people we work with to build consensus around this new normal. We've discussed how activists are pushing for national legislation but there is one case in particular that illustrates a very interesting way of making this happen. And it is working with policymakers and stakeholders at the municipal level. In Bolivia during the recent political crisis when national legislative efforts were stymied, Internet Bolivia went local. We're talking about governance coming from the bottom up as well as from the top. Eliana explained a little bit further.

Eliana Quiroz:
We think that the best way to go is to mix two strategies, a bottom-up strategy, from the National Assembly, to the people, to the other stakeholders. But also a top-down strategy from the municipalities talking with the people who are living these issues daily. So, we are trying to push this complimentary strategy so we could have a strong public debate. Because we also think that if we had a bill, we have a law approved it will be very difficult to implement it. So, our base is to have a broad public discussion. So, we are working now trying to develop this [unintelligible: 25:35] the stakeholders. We are working as a foundation in some rural municipalities. And also in the city of La Paz. La Paz is the city where the government is based in Bolivia. And in every workshop that we are given and in every meeting, we are trying to develop some informed discussion. So in this way, we will have some legitimacy to propose a draft to the Legislative Assembly. And of course, we are working now with [unintelligible: 26:08] with some rural municipalities. And also the authorities there and we have new authorities since one month ago in Bolivia. And they are clearer than the national ones. Because they are receiving every day some concerns from the people. Everybody is new in the authorities. Now in Bolivia, we have national as well as local authorities brand new, like one month or four months ago. So I guess now the public discussion will shape a common wheel.

Laura Vidal:
But what is the common wheel? What is that culture of rights-respecting privacy? Do people care about their online privacy? And if they don't, how do we get them to care? 

Teki Akuetteh:
Getting them to care is simple. We care about things that we know and we understand. 

Laura Vidal:
This is Teki. 

Teki Akuetteh:
One of the key things that you need to do is demystify the subject because it can be very technical. And you can be demystified at various levels. You can demystify for the media, you have to demystify for the citizens, you have to demystify for the industry. Now, looking at the nature of the laws that we have, which are usually generic and have to be applied to different contexts. What it then means is that you need to isolate the different contexts and then communicate what privacy then means within those contexts. And that is extremely important because you suddenly move from people not seeing privacy and data protection as an abstract subject to them getting to a point where they now recognize privacy and data protection as an inherent part of them. 

Laura Vidal:
And above all, collaboration. 

Teki Akuetteh:
Collaboration is very important. One of the best things that I think that civil society can bring to the table is expertise. We are missing a lot of expertise on the data protection table. From the start, we need to be fully equipped capacity wise to collaborate and support the requisite government agencies in passing the right laws. 

Laura Vidal:
And that is the end of our episode. Thank you so much for listening to Privacy is Global. You can follow us on social media at internewsadapt on Twitter, and internews_adapt on Instagram. There we keep you posted about our episodes and also about the organizations in charge of them. Many thanks to the experts that participated in this episode. Teki Akuetteh, Bianca Kremer, Victor Kapiyo, Gbenga Sesan and Eliana Quiroz. Laura Schwartz Henderson and I Laura Vidal are the Executive Producers and today's hosts. The podcast is mixed by [unintelligible: 29:32], and some of the music was made by [unintelligible: 29:34]. We used it here under a Creative Commons license. Privacy is Global is part of the adapt project and is made in collaboration with Internews, and the [unintelligible: 29:46] foundation.
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                                    <p>Produced by Paradigm Initiative for the series Privacy is Global</p>

                                    <p>
                                        Promoting privacy policies and culture has always been a struggle for Nigerian
                                        activists, as historical traditions emphasize communal culture and values over
                                        Western-style notions of individual privacy. Calls for better protections of
                                        personal privacy are often met with responses like “but what do I have to
                                        hide?”. However, with the advancement of digital technologies and more personal
                                        data being collected, processed and abused, the need for comprehensive data
                                        protection has become urgent.
                                    </p>

                                    <p>
                                        Currently in Nigeria, conversations about data protection take place with
                                        representatives from certain industries and specialized lawyers- but the subject
                                        matter can be highly technical and legal. Digital rights groups like Paradigm
                                        Initiative champion rights-respecting data protection policies and seek to
                                        strategize and coordinate with other stakeholders- but there is significant need
                                        to mainstream data protection advocacy and engage in more outreach and
                                        coordination with a variety of impacted sectors and constituencies.
                                    </p>

                                    <p>
                                        In this episode of Privacy is Global, Khadijah El-Usman speaks to individuals on
                                        how to mobilize and build support for data protection policies amongst different
                                        stakeholder groups and to discuss the advocacy challenges and opportunities that
                                        exist for such a highly technical issue in Nigeria. We will discuss these issues
                                        from the lens of three prototype ‘individuals’ who need to be more engaged: ‘The
                                        citizen’, who has a vague understanding of privacy rights and what happens with
                                        their data and why they should care; The lawyer, who understands the laws and
                                        legal precedent, but needs to broaden the debate; and the advocate, who
                                        struggles to bridge the gap between many communities and stakeholders to build a
                                        holistic rights-respecting data protection regime in Nigeria. Want to know more?
                                        Listen now!
                                    </p>

                                    <h2 class="podcast-section">Links in this Episode</h2>

                                    <ul class="ps-5">
                                        <li><a href="https://paradigmhq.org/report/digital-rights-and-privacy-in-nigeria/"
                                                target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Digital Rights and Privacy in
                                                Nigeria</a></li>
                                    </ul>

                                    <h2 class="podcast-section">Credits</h2>

                                    <p>
                                        Host: Khadijah El-Usman<br />
                                        Guests: Mubarak Ishola, Oluwafemi Erinle, Adeboye Adegoke<br />
                                        Editing & Mixing: Ergi Shkëlzeni<br />
                                        Visual Design: Ura Design<br />
                                        Executive Producers for Privacy is Global: Laura Schwartz-Henderson and Laura
                                        Vidal<br />
                                        Sponsored by Internews and <a href="https://us.boell.org/en/homepage"
                                            target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung
                                            Washington</a>
                                        DC
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                                        <h1 class="podcast-title">Facial Recognition in Brazil: Automating Oppression?
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                                    <p>Produced by Coding Rights for the series Privacy is Global</p>

                                    <p>In many places around the world, facial recognition technologies are gradually
                                        being deployed in several moments of our lives: be it in surveillance cameras
                                        installed across the streets we normally walk around or when we need to
                                        authenticate our IDs to allow access to social services or to enter banks and
                                        other private services. But what happens when we use a binary algorithm to
                                        control and influence non-binary and very diverse lives and experiences? Who
                                        gets excluded? What historical oppressions are being exacerbated and automated?
                                    </p>

                                    <p>Vanessa Koetz and Bianca Kremer, both Coding Rights fellows on Data and
                                        Feminisms, talked to two Brazilian experts: Mariah Rafaela Silva, scholar and
                                        activist in transgender rights and to Pablo Nunes, black scholar and activist
                                        specialist in public security and racism. Through this podcast, we will discuss
                                        the risks of implementing this kind of tech without an informed public debate
                                        about potential consequences. We even spoke to an algorithm, Dona Algô (Misses
                                        Algô… short for algorithm)! Are you curious? Press play!</p>

                                    <h2 class="podcast-section">Links in this Episode</h2>

                                    <ul class="ps-5">
                                        <li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omP93gEuQfI" target="_blank"
                                                rel="noopener noreferrer">From Devices To Bodies</a></li>
                                        <li><a href="https://privacyinternational.org/news-analysis/4474/threats-usage-facial-recognition-technologies-authenticating-transgender"
                                                target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Threats in the usage of facial
                                                recognition
                                                technologies for authenticating transgender identities</a></li>
                                        <li><a href="https://opanoptico.com.br/" target="_blank"
                                                rel="noopener noreferrer">Panóptico: Monitor do Reconhecimento Facial no
                                                Brasil</a></li>
                                    </ul>

                                    <h2 class="podcast-section">Credits</h2>

                                    <p>
                                        Research and Interviews: Bianca Kremer and Vanessa Koetz<br />
                                        Concept and script: Juliana Mastrascusa and Joana Varon<br />
                                        Interviews: Pablo Nunes and Mariah Rafaela Silva<br />
                                        Fictional Character: @Malfeitona<br />
                                        Editing & Mixing: Ergi Shkëlzeni<br />
                                        Visual Design: Ura Design<br />
                                        Executive Producers for Privacy is Global: Laura Schwartz-Henderson and Laura
                                        Vidal<br />
                                        Sponsored by Internews and <a href="https://us.boell.org/en/homepage"
                                            target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung
                                            Washington</a>
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1. Intro

Laura Henderson:
Welcome to Privacy is Global, a podcast brought to you by Internews and Heinrich Böll Foundation. Through this podcast, we will look at what is happening in privacy and data protection debates all around the world.

Laura Vidal:
In each episode, we will convene discussions on the development of Privacy politics and policy in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East. As part of this podcast, we will be talking to activists in countries around the world. So, hear the stories behind the fight for better and more protective data-privacy laws and policies.

Laura Henderson:
I’m Laura, Laura Schwartz-Henderson.

Laura Vidal:
And I’m also Laura, but I’m Laura Vidal.

Laura Henderson:
Welcome to the party!

Laura Vidal:
Ok, Laura, let’s start from scratch. What is Privacy for you?

Laura Henderson:
Privacy to me is being able to navigate my world and knowing I have some control over how I’m seen and perceived and over my own identity, I think.

Laura Vidal:
Well, I love that you say “I think”, because Privacy is a lot of things for a lot of people.

Laura Henderson:
Exactly! It’s also freedom. Freedom to navigate your own space and determine who you are, and not have the world determine who you are for you.

Laura Vidal:
I once heard something that I liked a lot and that’s: “Privacy is an enabling right. So, it might be a little bit abstract, it might be a little bit invisible, but Privacy is what lets you participate or not participate in your own terms and in your own ways in whatever is happening around you.”

Laura Henderson:
Yeah, and I also think, it’s so interlinked with your right to express yourself because if you feel like you have Privacy, you are less likely to self-moderate and you are more likely to navigate your world, searching online or saying something to your friend that’s authentically you, rather than worrying about where that information will go and what it means.

Laura Vidal:
The thing is that now that we are so dependent and so used to these new technologies, the question about Privacy has changed quite a bit. Like, Privacy today, I feel is not the same thing that it was 30 years ago. 

Laura Henderson:
Absolutely! I mean, you can be sitting in your room alone and have lots of information being collected on you. They can know where you are and essentially what you’re doing, who you’re talking to, without having to go anywhere. And it’s easy for us to think it’s so small, like, every tiny piece of data doesn’t feel big. And it feels like a part of a big system that you can control and so, once it starts it’s hard to stop.

Laura Vidal:
That’s a good point. There’s another thing. We’re really used to hearing debates and conversations and initiatives around data privacy that come from the same places that have really good representation. So, we know a bit already about what’s going on in conversations about Privacy in the US, and also in Europe. And that’s really important, especially in the US since a lot of the technologies were created having these populations in mind but these technologies are being used in so many places by so many people and in so many different ways, which means that there are many conversations about privacy that we are not really hearing about.

Laura Henderson:
That’s exactly why we wanted to do the series. As everybody knows, there’s a GDPR in Europe, which is changing the way that a lot of people talk about privacy regulations. There are conversations about what a Federal Privacy Legislation could look like in the US and state legislation but there are a lot of things happening all over the world, as we all come to terms with this new technological and social way of living. And other stories that we need to hear from activists who are pushing for new laws and pushing for protection and trying to force us to think critically about how we give away our data and the relationships we have with technology.

Laura Vidal:
Yeah, absolutely! I also think that governments are very much talking to each other and taking notes in whatever they do. So, I’m thinking that activists and people that care about these issues should also talk to each other and inspire each other in what they are doing.

Laura Henderson:
Inspire each other but also really understand what is contextually specific. If we're just copying regulations and laws, there's a lot of differences in how governments operate and what people are capable of, and how things can be enforced. And so, it's important to learn from the challenges that other jurisdictions are having, as we learn and grow and all collectively figure out how to govern in this new world. 

Laura Vidal:
Yeah. Why don't you tell us a bit more about where this idea came from? 

Laura Henderson:
As part of our project that we're running at Internews called the ADAPT project, we're working with a number of organizations to think through what privacy advocacy looks like in each of these countries, knowing that a lot of people are starting at different points. Public awareness on these issues might be lower or higher in some places, there might already be legislation passed, and then the real challenge is figuring out how to enforce those regulations, how to make sure regulatory bodies are independent, how to make sure they're well funded, how to deal with the politics of privacy laws. And all of these things are constantly changing and evolving and policymakers need to play “catch up” pretty much all the time and the activists are there, at the forefront of all of this, and we really wanted to hear their stories and their successes and highlight the work that they're doing.

Laura Vidal:
So to our listeners: You'll be hearing from us, but we will be passing the mic to many amazing organizations around the world for each episode. You'll hear from activists and experts as they take us to explore specific issues or as they help us understand the context of a particular country. For this first episode, we're passing the mic to Coding Rights and we're going to Brazil. Yeah, you're going to have an amazing experience listening to our wonderfully innovative friends from Coding Rights talk about how data privacy impacts gender identity, how it impacts racial discrimination, and also the colonial history in Brazil and what that means for surveillance and privacy. They'll also show us what it would be like to talk to an algorithm and what the ideas behind algorithms mean for how they function and how it scales versus societies. 

Laura Henderson:
I can't wait to hear all that. Let's go!

2. Head

Vanessa Koetz:
It is not very hard to imagine a reality where we use our faces as means of identification to enter a building or to guarantee a fair reduction on public transportation. Maybe this is already happening where you live.

Bianca Kremer:
Way beyond cute filters on social media or the unlocking function of mobile apps, the implementation of facial recognition technologies is permeated by important debates on gender, race, and territory. I am Bianca Kremer, Data and Feminism fellow at Coding Rights. 

Vanessa Koetz:
From devices to bodies, in this episode, we will talk about facial recognition, and the dangers of applying this tech, under narratives of public security, or for authenticating identities, particularly of people who do not fit in a privileged, white, cis, hetero, normative profile. 
I am Vanessa Koetz, also a Data and Feminism fellow at Coding Rights. Oh, and don't worry if you don't know much about facial recognition. This episode is full of daily life examples and we will also explain some key concepts about it.

Bianca Kremer:
If you have been following these debates for a while, take advantage of the next few minutes to get to know some very important research and productions that are being made here, in Brazil. The idea is to collectively advance in this debate. After all, it affects all of us as a society, doesn't it?

3. Miss Algô Airport

Another calm day of work from you Miss Algô, the airport assistance algorithm. Nothing strange, nothing new. Let's go on to the next person. 
“Male. White. Age: 20.”  
Oh, what a nice young man. 
“Single. French. Reason for travel: Study abroad.” 
A dedicated student. This one may pass. Great profile to enter the country. Next. 
“Woman. White.” 
Oh, I like her profile. 
“Accountant. Age:30. German. Reason for travel: Business.” 
Seems like a nice woman. Don't even need to ask anything. Let her in. Next. 
“Male. Black.” 
Wait, what? Who is this person? System, investigate him! 
“Math teacher. Age: 35. Colombian.” 
What is he trying to do here? Why is he threatening our borders? 
“The reason for travel: Attending an academic event.”
Well, and who invited this guy over here? 
“He was formally invited by the university.”
Oh, really? He still looks pretty suspicious to me. I can not let him thought without the extra check. He needs to present proof of invitation and then maybe, maybe I might allow him in. 
“Well done. This is Algô. Another day keeping our borders secure.”
Oh, assistant. Thank you. You know, I'm just doing my job as I was programmed to do.

4. Intro Pablo

Vanessa Koetz:
You have just listened to Miss Algô or, in Portuguese, Dona Algo, a fictional character that represents the algorithms of our everyday lives. She is our special guest for this episode.

Bianca Kremer:
Facial recognition technologies have proven to be powerful tools for mass surveillance that are being deployed under narratives about public security and innovation. But what are the consequences of deploying technologies that actually serve to reinforce discrimination against historically oppressed and persecuted populations?

Vanessa Koetz:
That is precisely why, in order to discuss facial recognition, we need to understand the contexts, in which this tech is being deployed, and the bodies, and territories, that are being targeted by it.

Bianca Kremer:
For instance, in Brazil, we are the third country with the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Among more than 770 thousand people imprisoned in the country, approximately 67% are black and brown. That is to say that two out of every three people imprisoned in Brazil are black and brown people. A rate that expresses a context of historical exclusion, a result of colonial violence, which, unfortunately, is likely to be similar in several places around the world.

Vanessa Koetz:
In 2020 two thousand twenty, the unemployment rate, among the black population in Brazil, was 71% higher than the rate for the white population. Considering the intersectionality of identities, it is further estimated that unemployment could reach 40% in the LGBT+ community, and 70% in the trans population.

Bianca Kremer:
A lot of data, yeah, we know. We are just trying to highlight that it is in this unequal and oppressive context that facial recognition is becoming popular in Brazil. Particularly since 2018, these technologies began to be widely implemented for policing public spaces from several regions in Brazil, especially at large metropolises like São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Salvador.

Vanessa Koetz:
In the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia alone, the system flagged more than 200 suspects. And we already know that some people ended up at the police station by mistake. While the number of arrests is increasing, the amount of information about the application of these systems by governmental agencies decreases. And so, quietly, on the sly, the use of facial recognition for policing is being normalized. And even defended.

Bianca Kremer:
To talk about facial recognition and public security in Brazil, I interviewed Pablo Nunes, Ph.D. in Political Science and researcher on issues related to public security in Brazil for 13 years. Since 2018, he has been coordinating the Center for Security and Citizenship Studies (CESeC), where he develops research and activism on human rights, public security, policing and the fight against racism. He coordinates the Security Observatories Network, an initiative that brings together Observatories in five Brazilian states. He conducts research on media, violence, social media, and new technologies allied to policing. He is also the founder of Panopticon: a project within CESeC to monitor the adoption of facial recognition technology by public security institutions in Brazil.

5. Interview 1

Question 1:
Hi Pablo, thank you so much for joining us. You have an impressive trajectory on the debates about race and public security in Brazil, and from 2018 onwards facial recognition started to be part of your analysis as well. What's the part you’re focused on in this specific field?

Pablo - Answer 1:   
I've been researching and working on different aspects of public security since 2008. Since 2013, I've been working at the Center for Studies and Citizenship. The CSC is an institution with a 21-year history researching public security, violence, and media in Rio de Janeiro, as well as other issues related to public policies and security, and how society debates and influences public policies on security. In 2018, we witnessed the federal intervention in Rio de Janeiro. It was a measure of power in which the federal government took upon itself part of the role of the state governor. At the time, Luis Fernando Pezão, who was left out of decisions related to the public security office. The federal interventor was a military man, General Braga Neto. Now, Braga Neto is the Defense Minister of the Bolsonaro Government. Under his command, Rio de Janeiro witnessed several police operations, numerous cases of violence, massacres, and other cases of human rights violations during the ten months where the intervention took place in Rio.

As the Federal Intervention was something that had never happened in Brazil, a civil society group got together to think about ways to monitor and follow up on this process. We did that so that we can force political pressure on cases of violations, and violence, as well as cases of corruption with public money. We created the Intervention Observatory, an initiative of the CESEC, which existed the ten months of the intervention. Our goal was to monitor the day by day of public security policies and create indexes that were not available among the data released by the police.

I addressed this point because Rio de Janeiro is a state where more than 10 police operations are held in slums and peripheral areas. Despite these operations being the core of the public security strategy and influencing the everyday lives of a significant part of the population of the state, Rio de Janeiro has never published data on them.

We know that without data, we cannot discuss public policies or influence them. And this is why we created a methodology to monitor these police operations. We published 10 monthly reports about the intervention in Rio. By the end of the federal intervention at the end of 2018, we already had Jair Bolsonaro as president-elect and Wilson Witzel as Rio de Janeiro governor-elect. Witzel was later deposed for corruption scandals. But at this moment, we had two commanders from the Rio de Janeiro state and federal governments with very aggressive policies on public security as the platform based on law and order and violent responses to crime. Their public policies platform also included the use of new technologies by the police to pursue a goal of greater imprisonment rates and exacerbated violence.

When the intervention ended in 2019, we created the Safety Observatory network, with observatories in the Brazilian states of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Bahia, Pernambuco, Ceará, and the two newest ones, Maranhão and Piauí. We started with the daily monitoring of events in these states. From 2019 onwards, we saw an increase or rather an emergence of arrests using facial recognition first in Bayer, and then spreading to other states From that moment on, we focused our attention on this issue and used the same methodology from the Security Observatories network to monitor cases of arrests.

At the end of 2019, we managed to identify 184 arrests. Of those, when the arrests had racial information indicated, 90% of these people were black. This is a well-known scenario in public security. And in a way, it reflects the larger data on the incarcerated population. From the end of the year, when we published this first report, the different units of the police in various states began to restrict access to information.

Consequently, we are no longer able to monitor these arrests, because the police started to create obscurity around this information. Then upon reflection, we thought about shifting our focus to the monitoring projects. We tried to understand how these projects are structured, who finances them, who are the key actors, companies, and suppliers that are involved in these facial recognition projects, and which police forces are using the technology.

We know that not only the military and civil police but also the municipal guards have been using this type of technology. And we want to know where the money is coming from, whether it is from the federal government or from other sources. This is how Panóptico started. Panóptico’s purpose is to monitor facial recognition use in Brazil, and we have issued analysis pursuant to the uses that state police and municipal guards have made a facial recognition technology.

Question 2:
Brazil is among the countries with the highest rate of incarceration in the world position, only behind the US and China. Your research has shown that several states in Brazil are starting to deploy facial recognition under the narratives of public security. In this scenario, what are the risks that you foresee?

Pablo - Answer 2:
Facial recognition has been used to reinforce and accelerate a logic that is well-known in Brazil, which has the third largest prison population in the world. In other wounds, we have decades of accelerated incarceration in the country. There was no sign that this accelerated incarceration is a strategy that aids the development of a citizen-oriented public security with the participation of society, or one that could create an atmosphere of security and the ability to fight against crime in our society. Facial recognition systems have been used as a new element aiding the incarceration and how the government responds to public safety issues. Facial recognition is also a negative element when it comes to the violation of rights, arbitrary decisions, and violence. In spite of the fact, we know from history that this technology has been applied without a critical reflection in this county. It has become normal without an open dialogue with society, and importantly, without transparency.

Question 3:
Pablo, we all know that most people incarcerated in Brazil are black. In a recent report by Panóptico, you indicated that 95% of people arrested through facial recognition technologies in the country were also black. Can you comment a little bit more on that, and on the insights from the report?

Pablo - Answer 3:
We create these methodologies, these ways of creating numbers, because the state is not transparent in relation to its own actions. There was previously nothing published about arrests based on facial recognition.

The state has not publicized the numbers relating to arrests and the profile of people arrested in states where there was a facial recognition project used by the police. We tried several times to obtain data under the access to information law, but all were denied for different reasons. So we decided to stop monitoring the data ourselves.

We know that what we can monitor is only a very small portion of what is really happening. In reality, numbers are probably way higher than what we can determine by monitoring the state’s actions. Nonetheless, in a scenario where there is literally no official information, any information we can get by monitoring the arrests may guide us in our analysis of these public policies and help us understand the impacts.

So we've been monitoring social media, the press, police blogs, and other websites, for every case of arrest that we can identify. We then created a database and reached some conclusions. There were 184 people arrested, 90% of whom were black. They were usually arrested for nonviolent crimes like petty theft and trafficking and small amounts of drugs, and the arrest happened in at least six different states in the country with a strong prevalence of arrests in the state of Bahia. The analysis indicates something we already know. Racism is ingrained in police actions and in the state as a whole. This is a very well-established profile. The promises that facial recognition could diminish racism and the police forces were actually proven wrong. In fact, we have seen that these technologies are being used to reinforce discrimination They have been used to create spaces that segregate the black population, such as the Copacabana neighborhood, where the Rio de Janeiro government clearly based itself off this segregation, logic, and other issues that have been reflected in other states as well.

Question 4:
Following the narratives on the news and in social media, some might say there is a general acceptance about the usages of facial recognition technologies for public security purposes. So, my last question is: What are the strategies to change this feeling? How to expose the dangers of the massive use of facial recognition technologies in public security. Can you comment on what challenges you face as a researcher?

Pablo - Answer 4:

This topic is essential, important, and urgent. I believe much of the beliefs this portion of the population has on facial recognition, including their trust of it and their acceptance of its use comes from the fact that facial recognition is a black box. One cannot know exactly what it does, what are the risks, and what are the potential impacts upon society that come with these technologies. It is a challenge to show the population how these technologies operate and how they have been impacting society.

This educational front approach, seeking to increase the number of people worried about the dangers of facial recognition, will only succeed if there was an open dialogue with those who studied the topic. It is important that the political science and law researchers, black activists, and other people who are already dedicated to this topic, not only about facial recognition itself but also about racism in society, in public safety, issues relating to public security policies, issues of privacy and violations of rights, stoke talking to generate a multi-dimensional understanding of what is the impact of facial recognition on society, and that this multidimensional understanding is conveyed to the general public in a didactic way, in a way that captures the attention of the largest number of people. We at Panóptico are investing our efforts on first-person experiences to try to connect people to this concern about facial recognition. So we are working on an application with an algorithm that will show the biases and other issues related to facial recognition. We also have other initiatives such as playbooks, leaflets, and other materials for social media, that also seem to be relevant to push this agenda forward. And it's important that we speak about the issue of facial recognition and that we speak to as many people as possible so that we can increase the number of people concerned about the issue. 

6. Miss Algô Public transport 

A: Uh where’s my bus card? Found it.

[device ringing]

A: What’s this?

Miss Algô: Uh excuse me! You don’t exist on my database. Next!

A: What do you mean I don’t exist on your database? Who are you?

Miss Algô: I’m the one who should be asking you. I’m Ms Algo, a transport system facial recognition algorithm and I’ve lost way too much time with you. 
Next!

A: Well, my card is fully charged and I have a right to get on the bus.

Miss Algô: Well, your gender record on my database doesn’t match the results of my camera’s facial recognition. I don’t think you are you, so I will not let you board.

A: Ok, I see what’s happening. Miss Algo, I updated my name and gender on my federal ID records. That should already be on your database.

[keyboard typing sound]

Miss Algô: Mmm, no. I haven’t found anything.

A: Please! Help me out! 

Miss Algô: Sorry honey, can’t do that for you. You are unrecognizable. 

A: I need to board Miss Algo. I’ve got to get to work.

Miss Algô: I’m sorry, but I’m not responsible for this issue. Next!

[low voice]
Miss Algô: Let me tell you a little secret. I actually may be responsible for this.

Vanessa Koetz:
As we can see, the implementation of facial recognition technologies by the public sector goes way beyond street surveillance. In Brazil, many governments are deploying this tech to authenticate identities, in order to enable access to public service, such as social benefits for public transportation. But what is sold by government as shining ovation to make our lives easier, may in fact also bring another layer of exclusion, especially of those who do not fit into privileged white mal cysgenger profile. That is most of us and many more people. 

Bianca Kremer:
That happens because these technologies are designed from the worldview of those who design them, mostly white male from the global north. And this construction makes historically excluded populations such as black and brown, trans and even LGBT+ population, at the same time visible for a curtain surveillance and invisible to access rights. Complex? Who develops these ideas is our next guest Maria Rafaela.
In this episode of this web documentary from devices to bodies, produced by coding rights available online, checks explained how facial recognition technologies can chase trans people as it is a surveillance tool that prejudices and stereotypes that labeled them as dangerous to certains context.Beyond surveillance, it can also work to exclude the trans population from accessing basic services, such as accessing student reduced fares for public transportation, if such can recognize a person. In other words, visible for surveillance, invisible to access the rights and services. Unfortunately, we must remember that Brazil is considered the world’s get list countries for trans communities, as it is the country for most kills transgender people in the world. 
In 2020, 127 transgender women were murderd. A 41 increase from the previous year. As we can see, the situation is already brutal and complicated.
Imagine what can happen if technology is that green forest binary views of gender, are added in a context that is already highly violent for trans people. It’s happening. 

Vanessa Koetz:
Can you get how big the problem is? I’m sure you’ll come away with your mind exploding full of reflections after our next interview.
Maria Rafaela is a black trans woman activist and researcher in gender, sexuality, art and subjectivation process. She holds a doctorship in social communication, master in history and criticism of culture and bachelor in history of art. She has experience in the critical analysis process of art, violence and power relations, subjectivation and education policies, access to justice and citizenship promotion within her groups. Also, she served as an advisor at the superintendence of individual collective and defuse rights, of their states secretary or social system and human rights between 2013 and 2015.
                           
Interview - Mariah Rafaela Silva

Question 1

Hi Mariah, thanks for joining us! You studied art history, sociology of art and the production of subjective. What’s part of your interest to investigate facial recognition, especially looking at trans identities? 

Mariah- Answer

So, Vanessa, I have a lot of thoughts about it. My education is interdisciplinary. I'm also involved with social movements. I was the director of Astra Rio, which is the Association of Transvestites and Transsexuals of Rio de Janeiro. I have more than 10 (ten) years of experience in the field of promoting human rights for transvestites and transsexuals, as well as people from all races black and racialized people, and those living in slums, which is where I’m from. And my education is, in fact, a complementary to my life story, to my engagement to social and political fields. So, I’m doing the opposite of what is normal, some people use their academic background to work in the social and political field. I use my engagement  in the social and political field to work in the academic space. There, is my first point.

As an undergraduate, I had already researched things related to the aesthetics of art, specifically where were the great artists, and the great trans artists, in the History of Art. Because, at the time I went to college, I didn't have any artist as a reference. We had all the references of the great geniuses of European Art History, but we hardly talked about cisgender women. We never talked about transsexual women and transsexual men in Art, and that bothered me. But everything changed when I went to the Master's Degree. Then I was specifically researching how the legacy of colonialism influences current violence. I wanted to understand this violence more deeply, from the perspective of cultural production. From the point of view of the production of subjectivity. And a specific concept that we use a lot in Psychology, called "Production of the colonial unconscious", which is a term coined by Frantz Fanon, but is widely used by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guatarri in Post Structuralist Philosophy.
I obtained a Master's Degree in Humanities, in History and Critical Theory of Culture, which is an area of the Human Sciences much closer to Sociology, and I went to England to research in a museum. And there I came across a whole universe where violence was produced in a structural, multidimensional way and, obviously, conditioning our way of being, thinking and acting in society.
This led me to my Doctorate Degree. I wanted to research structural violence in sex but, obviously, I was going through issues like expression. There are specific fields of communication: expression, languages, media. Mainly because I wanted to research the violence in pornographic cinema. And I came across the issues of algorithms, the biometrics, the history of biometrics (how the history of biometrics also conditions a history of control and segregation at the end of the 19th century), and I ended up researching, as a part of my Ph.D. (part of my research assignments) subjects such as facial recognition, biometrics, DNA mapping. These are issues that interest me, particularly, because I see there a new posture with regard to population control of large population groups, specifically. Partially related to people understood as minorities and a structure that segregates the society and separates the individuals. The neo-segregationism this time, under the support of technological devices. This interests me deeply.

Question 2

Those who listen us may not know but suddenly Brazil, is the country with the highest number of transgender people killed in the world. And they already know protection of LGBT+ rights is also collapsing under the current far right government. Could you comment on how this content affected the deployment of facial recognition when targeting LGBT+ people?

Mariah - Answer

I think they relate in a lot of different ways. But, the first question, and perhaps the most important one for us to address, is the following: transvestite and transsexual people, especially black and racialized people, in peripherical contexts, they have always been understood as threats to the Brazilian State. And this has always been an issue, since the foundation of what we understand today as Brazil with the invasion of the Portuguese. Xica Manicongo was a gendered threat, a gendered terrorism. And this arrived in the 20th century, mainly in the period of the Military Dictatorship, gaining contours of intensification and an ostensible policing of the State to control transvestites and transsexuals. So, there was already, within a mentality and a modus operandi of the State, of a policy to control these bodies through violence. Trans women and transvestites were collected from the cities, thrown into police cars which went through the streets at very high speed, shaking them inside breaking their noses, their legs. There are reports of heels that entered the thighs of other girls, given the violence with which they were treated.

And they were filed with the police. Literally cataloged, like you do in laboratories where you put a record in an animal, you attach a record to the animal and let that animal loose. Put a chip on that animal and let it loose, so you can monitor that animal's behavior. Of course, transvestites and transsexuals were not chipped, but they were recorded: the places where they walked, where they circulated, people with whom they eventually communicated. Because there was a whole idea that they were a threat. When you begin to understand that, in fact, the threat is not transvestites and transsexuals, but it is the culture that is formed around misogyny, cissexism, sexism, that makes these people perceived as threats. In fact, there is an inversion: the State  becomes a threat for these people.

And I think this logic of violence inevitably comes down to technology. I think it has become a cliché to say that these technologies are not neutral, they are produced by people. And once produced by people, they reproduce all the imagination, and all the normativities, and all the social hierarchies already established in the field of culture and society. This brings to technology a series of agenda that are profoundly violent, for example using facial recognition technology to predict who may or may not be a threat to society. This is only one of the applications. This technology may also be used to deny services to marginalized people. And to understand, throughout our research that there is a denial of services to transvestities and transexuals. And what is this denial of service? For example, when you register on a platform and you cannot use your social name. So, there is an issue of self-determination. It's like when you issue a bus card, but the photo of your document is different from how you express and your gender. And that prevents you from necessarily using the service,which is a public service to aid students. But also, prevents you from accessing public buildings of an alleged threat you pose to the place or the morality of that place. In other words, it is correct to say that technologies have been moralized and that they carry in their architectural engineering. They reflect all the apparatus of discrimination of disgust and abjection already placed and already presented in the scope of society. And they reproduce it. And, in this sense, they become deeply hostile to transvestites and transsexuals, especially the most precarious. And this reflected in a situation of imminent killing, but also in a policy of incarceration and exclusion from access to health services, and other services that the State offers to the population. So, there are other ways of killing. There are other ways for the State to cause a death, which is not necessarily literal or physical death, but also symbolic: social death, citizenship death.


Question 3

In January 2021, you were a researcher and director of coding rights launched their report “Facial recognition in the public sector and transvestites that politics controls surveillance and threatens the gender diversity intersectionality with race, class and territory”. In this report you gave examples on how facial recognition has been used to authenticate identities and allow citizens to access public services such as the social security benefits, lower fare rate of public transportations and even to use a driving license. You also pointed out possible harm caused usage resulting from a machine called false negative. There is when the machine doesn’t match a face with the identity corresponding to the face. In other words, it doesn't recognize that you are you. So, how does this affect particularly the LGBT+ population in all its intersectionality? 

Mariah - Answer 

I think the main issue, and it's not an issue that just affects the LGBTQIA+ population, but the population as a whole, first of all, is transparency and legislation. I think we urgently need to make an effort to transform that. Having legislation that protects users' data. A legislation that protects privacy. A more robust legislation that is capable of effectively mitigating digital crimes, especially against the most precarious people. And, obviously, this is reflected in an issue of transparency. We don't know how the States, but also the companies (mainly the Big Tech) effectively use this amount of data and what they do with it. Or even if most of this data really is used for advertisements.
And we know it's not. We know that, through this massive collection of information, a large map of behavior and, obviously, of shaping subjectivities has been made. And when you have access to subjectivities, you have access to human reserves in a way never seen before. When you access the production of subjectivity, you have inexhaustible access to human reserves. It means a lot. This means that you can literally lead a person, persuade a person to buy a certain product, but also commit a crime.
And this is particularly worrisome in a society that already understands transvestites and transsexuals as a threat. That already understands LGBTQIA+ people as a threat, and that already understands black people as a threat. Because every rhetoric, every speech will contribute to the intensification of a process of historical exclusion to which these people are already subjected.

So, this is a point that does not exclusively concern LGBTQIA+ people, but the entire population. I think these technologies, especially the false negative issue, is a contemporary matter, but it has an implication that is historical and that we need to be deeply aware of, because they concern what you are and what you can be. They literally tell you what you should be. When a face recognition machine, when a computer, an artificial intelligence, says that you are not what you claim to be, it is not just saying what you are not - Vanessa, or that you are not Mariah, or that you are not Bruna, or not Tatiana. She is saying that you cannot be that, because that is not your name.
So, it reconditions the cultural and human character of our experience. And I think this is the big problem, when there is a reconditioning of the human condition, starting from a mechanical condition, from an algorithmic engineering that reflects all the disgust and abjection already inserted in the population's scope.

Obviously, as I said before, this will reflect on the exclusion of rights, but this also directly reflects on the production of public policies. Note: public policies in education, public policies in transport, public policy in safety, health... Mainly, in security in which, nowadays, it is, perhaps, the most used niche, where these technologies are most used. Ostensible policing, the one that is done to avoid criminal situations in which you map people who present "risks". If, on the one hand, this technology says you are not what you claim to be, on the other hand, it claims that you can be what poses a threat to the collectively produced fictional idea of security. And this is very worrying. This is deeply disturbing!
Again, this reconditions the human character, of our humanity. That is, the whole set of human experiences are subjected to the scrutiny of these machines. And these machines literally calculate, produce metrics between what is possible, what is true, what is false, what is dangerous: but, above all, what represents an immediate risk and which obviously needs to be eliminated from the social life. I think that's the big risk, the big question and the big challenge of the 21st century for the issues of facial recognition, for the issues of false negatives, of false positives. We will have in the coming 3 (three) decades a profound debate in the field of law, but above all in the field of aesthetics, cultural and communication humanities because that is where the law comes from.


Question 4

So after this conversation, which was a masterclass thank you, can you also point out some of the challenges we have as a society and how they are being transposed to the deployment of technology such as facial recognition?

Mariah - Answer

I think we have a challenge in the field of legislation. I think the risk is for us to reinforce stigmas through our legislation. When the machine, facial recognition and artificial intelligence behind these devices and platforms start to say that those people are nor that. When you try to access. When you try to access, for example, Biovalid to prove your life, and you can't access it because you changed.

I'm going to make a weird comparison, Vanessa, to get to the concrete example. In the past, we used to go to the bank and you needed to sign the same way, to make a withdrawal or deposit a check. You made a signature the same as the one on your ID. But, over time, and this is normal, your signature changes. And then you arrive at the bank and your signature does not match what is registered in the bank's database.

The same thing happens with facial recognition as far as trans people are concerned. This biometric signature changes. And not just with trans people. We know that this happens, especially with black women, where black women are not recognized as women. Machines still have this difficulty. It's more or less that. This signature - and I'll call it a biosignature - they change. And this change reflects, mainly in the nature of security and security policies that these institutions start to adopt, but alo in the perspectives of legislation that the States start to adopt to guarantee security.

And this security is not dedicated to thinking about the best user or account holder experience. Rather, it is produced to protect the bank's assets. So, there is, deliberately, the interest of privileging the corporation to the detriment of the human experience, of the human itself.

I think this is a big risk. This is a risk that, in fact, is already posed, is already posed and that is being reinforced. So, how can we think about the whole social and legal framework, using as a parameter, as a starting point, the same historical place of distrust - of threat - from those people who, a priori, are people?! And as people, they changed in time and space? I think this is a big risk and, again, a big challenge. More than a risk, it is a great challenge, especially for transvestites and transsexuals.
And I'm not just talking about cosmetic surgery or hormonal therapies. I'm talking about basic issues like growing hair, which is part of the organic scope. The question of skin color and where you come from: we know that these technologies are much more hostile to poor people than to people who are better able and who know their specific uses, how they work, and who have more social passability.

I think the risks are many, it can't be exhausted here, but I am deeply concerned about this issue of how we are going to think about a whole set of legislation for the 21st century, based on these principles.

Either we build efforts to reinforce difference and diversity, creating control mechanisms not for the population, but for the uses and applicability of facial recognition technologies, or we will enter a collision course with the very functioning of the State. The state is building mechanisms that put its own democratic and political stability at risk.

Closing 

Bianca Kremer:
What to do above all this? The city of Boston and San Francisco, both places that now have research centers and innovations in technology are experimenting with either men or remoritorian  use of facial recognition by the police and law enforcement agencies. And this is a trend that is emerging in several places around the world. 

Vanessa Koetz:
Indeed. Campaigns from the global  ban of the use of facial recognition are spreading and creating awareness about how these two are able to enable mass surveillance and gender and racial descrimination. Last June, a letter signed by more than 170 human rights organizations around the world including us from Coding Rights, highlighted some of these concerns and asked for a ban on biometric scans. Next step is to push for legislation around our countries and regions. But for that to happen we need a lot of people concerned about the topic. So, are you?

Bianca Kremer:
When it comes to authentication of identities we still have a lot to discuss. We need more transparency about where the error is and the implementation of the systems. Including disaggregated data about the demographics of cases or false negatives. Meaning, what the system identifies you when being you. Furthermore, in order to avoid further exclusion this data authentication should never be the only way to access the services and many safeguards need to be discussed and considered in terms of security and data protection. If a data leak compromising your password is already damaging, what happens if someone clones your leaked biometric data? 

Vanessa Koetz:
Our main take here is that not every innovation is good or that should be implemented just because it exists. What do you think? If you want to learn more about Coding Rights or find the materials we talked about in this episode, follow us on social media @codingrights .

Bianca Kremer:
This episode was produced by Coding Rights.
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