Video surveillance is not something new on our streets, neither in San Sebastian, nor in Euskal Herria, but what is especially serious is that the increase in smart video surveillance, which implies increased security and social control, is taking place without any kind of social debate and confidential. In fact, the new technology that allows the integration between artificial intelligence and video surveillance is expanding strongly by all the security forces we have in Euskal Herria, both local, autonomic, state and international, as well as in Donostia.
If we were to analyze from this point of view the normal life we do in a single day or in a week, we would find a frightening reality: as soon as we go out into the street we take care of video surveillance cameras, even if we don't realize it. Every day we live under the gaze of hundreds of cameras; on the street, in the parking lot, in the plaza, in any public space, in the work, in the transportation, in the cashier, in the bank, in the shopping center, in the sports center, in the cinema, in the university campus… Now, with artificial intelligence, this reality has become much harder.
Through intelligent video surveillance that is secretly broadcast, cameras not only watch it but watch it, knowing people or detecting suspected suspicious behaviors. As if it were not enough, the cameras have crossed that image and information received with other Administration databases around each of us and opened the way for information about one’s own life. Where we live, where, how and with whom we move, what we do, where we work, how we behave, whether we have received fines or sanctions, what we buy, what we eat, what we learn, the diseases we suffer, bank credit -- it's all going to be related in the coming years.
As soon as we go out into the street we put ourselves in the custody of video surveillance cameras, although we don't realize
According to data published by the press and which no one has denied, the Ertzaintza has already received 300,000 faces and 590,000 fingerprints in a biometric system based on artificial intelligence for its information... but the Ertzaintza acknowledged that since 1982 it has made police records of 67,000 detainees. Who then are the other faces and fingers and how have these data been collected? How many data has the Ertzaintza obtained through mobile phone controls without any legal authorization in the name of security?
In 2021, the Interior Ministry acknowledged that 28% of its expenditure was spent “on the consolidation of electronic and electronic fixed and mobile telecommunications equipment”. In addition to ertzainas data, how many faces, fingerprints and biometric and DNA characteristics are collected in the Basque Country by the Civil Guard, National Police, CNI, Gendarmerie, DST, Foral Police and Municipal Police? In a Basque country with just three million, for one reason or another, how many are we fichados? Well, all citizens, in addition to the control of our mobiles, will from now on also control us through smart video surveillance and are taking steps towards it.
In this sense, on December 14, the entity DonostiaTIK, dedicated to informatics of the City of San Sebastian, took the first steps to strengthen and guide smart video surveillance by acquiring new video cameras. In addition, he decided to install the technological infrastructure necessary for these cameras to function with artificial intelligence to make the images received available to the City Hall and the Municipal Police. All these developments are intended to be carried out with the help of the famous European Next Generation funds. To this end, we do not want any European Union fund.
In Donostia, Mozal city, neither the number of cameras nor the number of cameras you want to put in
Simply, and without any kind of social debate, do we have to approve such control systems in the Basque Country, and in our case in Donostia? Like the La Concha railing or the tamarinds of Alderdi Eder, should we consider the new smart video surveillance cameras as part of the landscape of our city, knowing that they will be a tool to control all our movements? In San Sebastian, the city of Mozal, they don't even tell us how many cameras there are or they want to put, neither public nor private cameras. And who will control those who control these powerful control systems? Who and how will the driver control? Because all of us will be controlled, but we will not have the opportunity to control them.
It is becoming increasingly clear that in the name of supposed security they are destroying our fundamental rights, among others, because all the major political forces that govern are in favour of it throughout the Basque Country. They also have the support of the States and the European Union.
Several global studies suggest that smart video surveillance increases security in certain situations and places, but often, far from ensuring security, it moves risks elsewhere and drives the invention of new forms of execution. The social price paid is enormous: having full control of society in exchange for avoiding some serious events. That's what comes to Donostia and Euskal Herria. Let's prepare the answer.
Maria Luisa Sánchez, Andoni Rodríguez, Urko Seis Tomás, Loren Roca and Joseba Alvarez.
PIZTU representing Donostia.