Daina Elias, Windsor Law Student, JD 2026, & LTEC Lab Research Assistant
On September 18, 2024, Windsor Law LTEC Lab welcomed Petra Molnar to introduce her newly published book The Walls Have Eyes: Surviving Migration in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. The book concerns a worldwide trend: as more people are displaced by war and economic instability, more countries are pushing for AI-driven technology to “manage” the influx.
The celebration of Petra’s book was a joyous gathering fueled by curiosity and passion. Faculty and students from the University of Windsor joined Windsor Law LTEC Lab in person and virtually at the Ron W. Ianni Faculty of Law Building for this timely occasion.
Dr. Pascale Chapdelaine, Director of LTEC Lab and Associate Professor at Windsor Law started the event with a warm introduction of our esteemed guest. With her global presence in Jordan, Turkey, Philippines, Kenya, Columbia, Canada, Palestine, and various parts of Europe, Petra Molnar is committed to investigating the everyday violence of high-tech border technologies. Her expertise permeates her work and can be attributable to her experience as both a lawyer and anthropologist specializing in migration and human rights.
Throughout her career, Petra has authored numerous academic and popular press publications covering technology and migration and is one of the leading international voices on these amalgamated issues. Her work has notably been featured in The Guardian, CNN, Al Jazeera, Time Magazine, and the New York Times, including others, and she is routinely cited in both local and global media, in addition to various policy briefings at national and international levels.
Following Professor Chapdelaine’s introduction of Petra and discussant Professor Vincent Wong, Petra began her presentation. She opened by greeting her longtime friend, colleague and Windsor Law’s very own Professor Wong, who she describes as “one of the most principled and creative voices that we have in academia.” It was quickly revealed to the audience that the art of creativity is not only specific to Professor Wong, but also to Petra as she shared her ideas about the intersection of migration and technology and her unique approach to channeling expression vis-à-vis storytelling and photography.
Like many creative professionals, Petra continuously situates herself in the work that she does. However, distinct to Petra are her personal difficulties encountered at the border, which she credits with helping to pique her interest in migration and technology. Petra describes her knowledge of the latter as once being “Wikipedia-level,” but having expanded after learning about its close relationship to power. The concept of power is not distant to sociolegal studies nor in our theoretical discussions of law, and so it is almost natural to begin asking questions about how new technologies are being used in immigration and impacting migrants’ lives to their detriment.
Petra mentions that capturing the reality of a system of oppression is difficult to see; it is often opaque and secretive, as it involves witnessing horrific decisions being played out at borders. Despite many legal professionals’ limited understanding of technology and their resultant hesitancy to investigate it, they ought to recall that they are skilled in procedural fairness. Her aim is thus not only to document and thereby uncover what has been covert for so long, but to ask the deeper questions about technology for the purpose of understanding power and how it operates in society. More precisely, Petra’s book is committed to inquiring into whose perspective matters and whose priority takes precedence in the decision-making process of such affairs.
Petra then presents to the audience her stunning photography, which she uses as an ethnographic tool to document regional migration issues where displacement occurs. Rather than depicting information that is already readily available in a United Nations report and has proven to be of little avail, her photography wittingly aims to capture the infrastructure and the issues occurring at the borders. This includes working closely with individuals in displacement and allowing them to become part of the archive of what she does.
Relevant to Windsor Law LTEC Lab – faculty, law students, and alumni with a keen eye for access to justice may begin to think about what law and lawmaking is doing at this juncture with the help of Petra’s work, and whether existing human rights frameworks are sufficient or are contributing to the challenges faced by migrants in the context of evolving technologies. Nonetheless, a thorough inspection at the border is necessary and is oftentimes accompanied by the conversation of border as space. Borders have been violent and deadly for centuries, and Petra points out that that is largely owing to them being a site in which “power unfolds.”
More important at hand, the violence has been sharpened through technologies used for the purpose of border control and surveillance. As mentioned in Petra’s book, “Racism, technology, and borders create a cruel intersection . . . more and more people are getting caught in the crosshairs of an unregulated and harmful set of technologies touted to control borders and ‘manage migration,’ bolstering a multibillion-dollar industry.” That said, border as space – where new technologies and practices are tested, and often at the expense of an already marginalized group’s well-being, has, in turn, led to an intensification of systemic discrimination at the border.
To further depict the power involved, Petra notes how each point of a person’s migration process is being watched, be it through walls, drones, CCTV cameras, mobile tracking, data collection and sharing, and so forth. While their purpose may be founded in security and safeguarding public safety, it is evident that they can rapidly turn intrusive in individual’s lives, perhaps more than anticipated. Conversely, decision-makers know of its intrusiveness and deliberately choose to excuse such practices to monitor people in the name of changing and developing times.
As part of Petra’s ethnographic work at the fringes of Europe, East Africa, Palestine, and the U.S.-Mexico border, Petra witnessed emerging technologies changing the way people move. From the use of invasive biometrics in refugee camps, to discriminatory algorithms to assess visa applications, to drone surveillance in place of search and rescue operations, these projects are escalating in violence. For purposes of illustration, drones and sound canons, which emit a shriek to prevent people from approaching, are deployed despite ethical concerns all while individuals are seemingly exercising their right to seek asylum.
Moreover, in 2022, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced it was training “robot dogs” to help secure the U.S.-Mexico border against migrants. Robot dogs are four-legged machines equipped with cameras and sensors that are set to accompany a network of drones and automated surveillance towers – nicknamed the “smart wall.” While there is a push for the use of AI-driven technology to “manage” influx, it has already proven to not effectively prevent migration. Instead, Petra remarks, what often occurs is that individuals take more dangerous routes in their pursuit of opportunity and safety. The underlying concerns are never addressed.
Consider the story of Elias Alvarado, a young husband and father from Central America who was found just kilometers away from a major highway. He became trapped in an expanding surveillance and “smart border system,” a comprehensive network at the U.S.-Mexico border that has already taken thousands of lives. This gruesome reality is further emphasized by the U.S. government’s increasing commitment to creating a virtual smart border that extends well beyond its physical boundaries. It is at this point, again, that we ought to echo Petra’s question of whose perspective matters and whose priority takes precedence.
After depicting the harsh realities that exist at borderlands, Petra made appropriate efforts to bring our attention to the human rights impacts of some of the technology. Firstly, it is noted that these technologies often undermine the principles of equality and freedom from discrimination, as marginalized groups are disproportionately targeted and monitored. Privacy rights, too, are infringed upon as individuals face constant surveillance without their consent, thus raising concerns about data protection and the obvious potential misuse of personal information. Petra reminds the audience, which included Professor Chapdelaine’s privacy law class, that privacy rights in this context must be thought of contextually. To provide a global example, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, in collecting heaps of data from Rohingya refugees who were escaping Myanmar to Bangladesh due to persecution, shared it with Myanmar’s government without consent to verify people for possible repatriation. Petra then makes the important ask: “Why were we collecting this type of information in the first place?”
As previously mentioned, the technology can also work to create dangerous conditions for migrants such as pushing individuals to take more risky routes to avoid detection, resulting in increased fatalities. Petra’s audience is ultimately left with the clear message that there should be a reassessment of the technologies in place to ensure that human rights are upheld and that the dignity and safety of all individuals are prioritized. This is especially true when one contemplates the increasing expansion of surveillance and control into other aspects of daily life. As Professor Wong later starkly notes, border technologies and practices inform other border areas, demonstrating that the impact of enhanced monitoring, such as the growing use of robot dogs aimed at keeping communities safe, does not stop at the borders themselves.
Petra uses her co-creative project, the Migration and Technology Monitor to positively conclude her talk by redirecting the audience’s focus on how we are to meaningfully create a better world. The project consists of a living and growing archive of work done at the nexus of migration and technology. Its goal is to “monitor surveillance technologies, automation, and the use of AI to screen, track, and make decisions about people who are on the move.” Through its innovative Fellowship Program and the fellows involved, all of whom are doing equally impactful work, the effects of these procedures and policies on people’s livelihoods are addressed at length.
Professor Wong’s commentary followed. From the start, he praises Petra’s balancing act in her book wherein she involves both the storyline and the topic of technology seamlessly. To ground the discussion, Professor Wong points to recent developments made in the Windsor-Detroit area. Canada’s Border Service Agency has stated that they will use facial recognition and biometric gathering vis-à-vis an app to keep surveillance on individuals ordered for deportation. This begs the question of what impact it will have on the people directly affected.
When contemplating issues of migration and technology, it is stimulating for students to discern its interplay with other fields of law. Professor Wong excellently brings migrant labour into the discussion. More specifically, he calls to mind how technology is not solely used to exclude, but to include certain bodies and sometimes include bodies, particularly migrant workers, under restrictions and strict conditions. Rather than exclude, the effort is made to subordinate, and still, Professor Wong implies, there exists a beneficiary from the completed work. In conversation, Petra provides a real-life example; namely, the exploitation of data workers which come as a direct result from the surveillance and biometric technologies introduced to labour markets globally, especially in regions like Africa, where jobs like content moderation are characterized by terrible working conditions and minimal pay. One must ponder the rights that exist for these types of workers, who are essential to the functioning of these technologies but often encounter significant exploitation and a lack of protection.
The book presentation closed with a question period from audience members. A law student wanted to hear about the role of the legal profession in addressing data breaches. Petra notes that there are promising entry points by the legal profession just by virtue of lawyers on the move. Canadian and international lawyers are now finding out about technologies even prior to their emergence and are rightfully creating new communities of practice to hold governments accountable for utilizing harmful technology. As Petra notes in her book and Carlo Rovelli once said, with a glimmering sense of hope, “There are places in the world where rules are less important than kindness.”
The event featured two raffles generously sponsored by Windsor Law LTEC Lab to win a copy of Petra’s book, with cards available for sign-up and books for sale to support the cause.
Congratulations to Petra Molnar for her remarkable and timely contribution and thank you to all who attended our event.
The book can be found on The New Press website. A recording of the event is available at Webinar - LTEC LAB Seminar Series with Petra Molnar-20240918_172801-Meeting Recording.mp4.
Comments