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- Rights or Surveillance, PCDN AI for Impact Newsletter, June 6, 2025
Rights or Surveillance, PCDN AI for Impact Newsletter, June 6, 2025
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AI Surveillance: Rights, Power, and How We Shape the Future
AI-driven surveillance is exploding, and the stakes for rights, equity, and the future of democracy couldn’t be higher. As someone who’s spent a career connecting changemakers and advocating for opportunity, I see the tension between innovation and the urgent need for ethical guardrails everywhere I look.
What’s Really Happening?
AI is now powering surveillance in ways that would have sounded dystopian just a few years ago. From facial recognition in public spaces to predictive policing and AI-generated undercover agents on social media, the reach is staggering. Just look at 404 Media, a journalist-owned outlet breaking stories on how police and federal agencies are tapping into nationwide AI camera networks and using AI-powered license plate readers for everything from routine crime-fighting to immigration enforcement—even when there’s no formal oversight or contract in place. Their reporting shows how easy it is for powerful actors to sidestep public accountability and how AI is being used to surveil not just criminals, but also activists, immigrants, and everyday people.
Meanwhile, Rest of World is documenting how these trends aren’t confined to the Global North. Surveillance tech is being exported and adapted globally, often with even less transparency and fewer protections for civil society. In many parts of the world, AI surveillance is being used to clamp down on dissent and reinforce existing power imbalances.
The Dangers
Massive Privacy Risks: AI makes it trivial to track, analyze, and profile people at scale—often without consent or any meaningful oversight.
Algorithmic Bias: Predictive policing and surveillance systems have repeatedly targeted marginalized communities, amplifying discrimination instead of reducing it.
Chilling Effects: When people know they’re being watched, they self-censor. That stifles creativity, activism, and democracy itself.
Authoritarian Abuse: The same tools that promise safety can be weaponized to monitor dissent, silence critics, and entrench power.
Opaque Power Structures: As 404 Media and others have shown, these systems often operate as black boxes, with little recourse for those harmed.
Where Things Are Headed
We’re seeing a global race to deploy smarter, more pervasive surveillance tools—often outpacing regulation and public debate. The AI Now Institute warns that the tech industry’s control over digital infrastructure is shaping not just markets, but the very fabric of our societies. The pushback? Advocates, journalists, and communities are fighting for transparency, new legal frameworks, and a rebalancing of power.
Publications like 404 Media and Rest of World are at the frontlines, exposing abuses and sparking conversations about what’s at stake. Organizations like the ACLU, Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, and Brennan Center for Justice are pushing for rights-based approaches and accountability.
Advocate, Decide, and Shape AI’s Future
We can’t just be passive recipients of AI’s impacts. Here’s how we can shape the trajectory:
Demand Transparency & Oversight: Insist on knowing how, where, and why AI surveillance is used. Public oversight is non-negotiable.
Push for Algorithmic Fairness: Bias audits, impact assessments, and the right to challenge automated decisions must be standard.
Draw Red Lines: Some uses—like real-time biometric mass surveillance—should be banned outright.
Global Standards & Solidarity: Rights and protections shouldn’t stop at borders. We need international cooperation and a shared commitment to equity.
Support Independent Media & Advocacy: Outlets like 404 Media, Rest of World, and advocacy groups are essential for shining a light on abuses and pushing for change.
Leverage AI for Advocacy: Use AI tools to amplify campaigns, organize communities, and hold power to account. But always center human rights and dignity in the process.
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🔗 LinkedIn Profile to Follow
Wilneida Negrón
Wilneida Negrón builds strategies and institutions to strengthen civic foundations, focusing on labor, public safety, and media ecosystems. She works across behavioral science, AI governance, democracy-building, and is the author of the upcoming book "Dear Worker, Your Future."
Learn more on her LinkedIn | wilneida.com