Surveillance and the U.S.-Mexico Border: 2023 Year in Review

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The U.S.-Mexico border continues to be one of the most politicized spaces in the country, with leaders in both political parties supporting massive spending on border security, including technological solutions such as the so-called “virtual wall.” We spent the year documenting surveillance technologies at the border and the impacts on civil liberties and human rights of those who live in the borderlands.

In early 2023, EFF staff completed the last of three trips to the U.S.-Mexico border, where we met with the residents, activists, humanitarian organizations, law enforcement officials, and journalists whose work is directly impacted by the expansion of surveillance technology in their communities.

Using information from those trips, as well as from public records, satellite imagery, and exploration in virtual reality, we released a map and dataset of more than 390 surveillance towers installed by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) along the U.S.-Mexico border. Our data serves as a living snapshot of the so-called “virtual wall,” from the California coast to the lower tip of Texas. The data also lays the foundation for many types of research ranging from border policy to environmental impacts.

We also published an in-depth report on Plataforma Centinela (Sentinel Platform), an aggressive new surveillance system developed by Chihuahua state officials in collaboration with a notorious Mexican security contractor. With tentacles reaching into 13 Mexican cities and a data pipeline that will channel intelligence all the way to Austin, Texas, the monstrous project is unlike anything seen before along the U.S.-Mexico border. The strategy adopts nearly every cutting-edge technology system marketed at law enforcement: 10,000 surveillance cameras, face recognition, automated license plate recognition, real-time crime analytics, a fleet of mobile surveillance vehicles, drone te

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