Amnesty International Argentina on Tuesday denounced the growing use of surveillance technologies by President Javier Milei's government against his critics.
In a new report (entitled Estado de vigilancia: la expansión del uso de tecnologías de vigilancia masiva por el gobierno de Argentina, or "Sensing the Surveillance State: Argentina’s Expanding Policies and Technologies of Mass Surveillance") Amnesty said the creation of databases of protesters, the monitoring of their social media and the use of facial recognition technology was stifling dissent.
Between December 2023, when Milei took office, and December 2025, the Argentine government "implemented a slew of security and intelligence reforms and expanded their use of surveillance technologies," the report said.
"These measures constitute an intensification of state monitoring capacities... aimed at controlling and deterring protest and increasing authoritarian practices," it added.
Milei's drastic austerity measures have repeatedly sparked mass protests in Buenos Aires and other cities.
Amnesty said that the National Security Ministry spent at least US$1.2 million to acquire surveillance technologies between 2024 and 2025.
In interviews with Amnesty, a group of journalists, activists, rights defenders and some of the retirees who demonstrate weekly for higher pensions and better healthcare access all said they felt they were being watched.
Surveillance technologies “have become an integral part of the state’s control infrastructure,” said Matt Mahmoudi, an Amnesty International researcher and adviser on artificial intelligence and human rights.
The Amnesty report said the government had purchased a licence to use facial-recognition technology from Clearview AI, a company “known for the mass exploitation of biometric data without a sufficient legal basis.”
In recent years, Clearview has been fined by authorities in France, Greece, Italy and the Netherlands over its use of the technology.
Amnesty placed the phenomenon within a “global wave of techno-authoritarianism,” with effects on the population including self-censorship on social media and reduced participation in political life.
Based on its documentation, the report concludes that cyber-patrolling in Argentina has been used to “attack dissent, deter protest movements and harass marginalised groups, among other authoritarian practices,” Mahmoudi said.
“What is happening in Argentina is not an isolated incident. Around the world, states adopting authoritarian practices are increasing their use of surveillance technologies against human rights defenders, young people, migrants, marginalised and displaced groups, and dissidents,” said the expert.
Amnesty’s report calls for a ban on the development, production, sale and use of biometric recognition technology for surveillance purposes, as well as the establishment of new regulatory framework.
– TIMES/AFP
