PUBLICATION: Analysis
Digital Surveillance in Serbia
People’s ever-stronger reliance on digital technologies and devices has caused states and private actors to increasingly reach for various systems and tools for the digital surveillance of citizens. Consequently, high-resolution cameras, artificial intelligence, programmes for biometric recognition, tools for automatic data collection from the Internet, and intrusive software for monitoring mobile phones have become the everyday reality of people worldwide.
The spread of digital surveillance in Serbia is highly non-transparent, and especially dangerous since Serbia has been assessed as a captured state characterised by the abuse of state resources for the sake of personal and party interests. Although the reports by the media and investigative journalists are important, they are focused on individual cases, which makes it difficult to get a broader picture of the scale of the digital surveillance problem in Serbia based on them.
That is why it is important, starting from the existing reports, to map the digital surveillance infrastructure in Serbia, i.e. to make a list of digital surveillance equipment and programmes the state institutions have acquired, determine whether they are competent and authorised to use them, and how these technologies are misused. Since Serbia is striving to become a member of the European Union (EU), it is also important to show how the EU is attempting to regulate this area.
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