The Politics of Technology in Latin America (Volume 1)

Data Protection, Homeland Security and the Labor Market

Avery Plaw, Barbara Carvalho Gurgel, David Ramírez Plascencia

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000317725
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book analyses the arrival of emerging and traditional information and technology for public and economic use in Latin America. It focuses on the governmental, economic and security issues and the study of the complex relationship between citizens and government.

The book is divided into three parts:

• 'Digital data and privacy, prospects and barriers' centers on the debates among the right of privacy and the loss of intimacy in the Internet,

• 'Homeland security and human rights' focuses on how novel technologies such as drones and autonomous weapons systems reconfigure the strategies of police authorities and organized crime,

• 'Labor Markets, digital media and emerging technologies' emphasize the legal, economic and social perils and challenges caused by the increased presence of social media, blockchain-based applications, artificial intelligence and automation technologies in the Latin American economy.

This first volume in a two volume set will be important reading for scholars and students of governance in Latin American, the protection of human rights and the use of technology to combat crime and the new advances of digital economy in the region.

1Introduction

Avery Plaw, Barbara Carvalho Gurgel, and David Ramírez Plascencia

The popularization of the Internet, beginning in the last decade of the 20th century, and accelerated by the growth of mobile technology in the first decade of the 21st, has had a huge impact around the world. This change not only affects how people communicate, shop, and entertain, but also the way they see the world and how they represent themselves. In addition, the huge advances in the field of artificial intelligence and robotics have led to the invention of sophisticated social robots that are capable of mimicking humans and creating social relationships with people. The impact of these developments has been widely noted and discussed in the most technologically advanced countries of the world, which are often at the cutting edge of emerging trends, but they have been far less carefully examined in regard to the developing world, and Latin America in particular.

This oversight is unfortunate, because emerging technologies are having an enormous impact, and raising equally difficult (and often distinctive) issues in Latin America. The use of the Internet in general, and social media in particular, is one of the most significant social activities for inhabitants of the region, despite uneven accessibility (Statista Research Department, 2020b). New information technologies are continuously arriving in the region as well, from the Internet of things to artificial intelligence, drones, robots, all of which are conspiring not only to change the domestic, social, and economic environment, but to transform social and economic links across the region and externally with the outside world. In a real sense, the Internet has cut the region’s geographical moorings and plunged it and its inhabitants into an integrated and multi-tiered global virtual space.

Moreover, this technological omnipresence has raised novel legal, ethical, and political issues concerning the relationship between the governments and their citizens, especially regarding the contraposition of negative and positive liberties. The protection of civil rights such as free speech and privacy comes up against the governments’ efforts to monitor user activity online (as a way to protect citizens from, for example, terrorists and criminal gangs that operate transnationally). At the international level, many pressing issues have arisen such as foreign government intervention in regional elections through the use of bots, fake news, hacking, and other informational war strategies. Locally, some matters like the use of unmanned drones to combat crime and insurgent movements across Latin America are raising public concerns as well. Actually, there is a growing temptation to impose deep technical and legal controls on the immense flows of virtual data on the Internet. However, history reveals that trying to find a balance amongst security and freedom is not an easy task. What is clear around the world is that despite deep disagreements about whether and how to regulate new technologies, things have changed in ways that demand careful public attention and potential reform. The Latin American context also raises some distinctive issues in regard to the diffusion of these new technologies. The economic agenda, for example, is marked by a labor transition from the industrial model to the knowledge economy, in which both rural and urban production sectors will be impacted by the use of robots, automation, and connectivity, raising concerns about how these emerging technologies will reshape the labor market in countries like Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina.

In 2020, these concerns reached a next level since the outbreak of the COVID-19 global pandemic. Authorities, even in Latin America, have made use of digital devices such as drones, robots, and mobile applications to support their fight against the disease. Drones and robots have committed to undertaking surveillance tasks, sanitizing public areas, and advising people to avoid crowds and to stay at home (EFE, 2020). Other technologies such as phone location tracking have been employed to enforce quarantine and monitor the spread of the virus. However, besides the potential benefits of using these devices to combat the pandemic, the incorporation of these technologies compromise users’ sensitive data such as identity, preferences, associations, and opinions (Human Rights Watch, 2020). This fact is particular risky in countries without robust democratic institutions and regulations, exposing users to misuse of their private data, and even political persecution. While understanding the real impact of employing these applications to diminish the effects of the pandemic is yet under development, there is no doubt that digital media and smart phones are no longer an accessory; those technologies play a key role in people’s lives that cannot simply be overlooked, particularly regarding the protection of human rights.

The structure of the book

The politics of technology in Latin America (Volume 1): data protection, homeland security and the labor market

This book focuses on the analysis of the complex relationship between citizens and the government in an interconnected context. Volume 1 is divided into three main sections. Part I. Digital data and privacy, prospects and barriers. Part II. “Homeland security and human rights, a questioned balance?” and Part III. “Labor Markets, digital media and emerging technologies: potentials and risks.” Every section embraces one key topic related with the control and regulation of digital technologies in Latin America. The first part, “Digital data and privacy, prospects and barriers” focuses on the academic and public debates about of the right of privacy and the loss of intimacy in the Internet, where the user’s private data is exposed, not only to criminal organizations, but to commercial and government use as well. Part II. “Homeland security and human rights, a problematic balance?” focuses on how novel technologies such as drones and autonomous weapons systems reconfigure the strategies of police authorities and organized crime. In Part III. “Labor Markets, digital media and emerging technologies: potentials and risks,” the discussions emphasize the legal, economic and social perils and challenges caused by the increased presence of social media, blockchain-based applications, artificial intelligence and automation technologies in the Latin American economy. What would be the future landscape of labor markets in Latin America with the arrival of theses novel technologies?

Part I. Digital data and privacy, prospects, and barriers

As the adoption of information technologies increases around the world, there are growing uncertainties about how the government and the corporations gather and manipulate user private data for commercial, electoral, and policymaking purposes, and what kinds of legal and ethical frameworks could be proposed to protect users’ private data? Actually, customer data has become one of the most important economic assets. Corporations use this information to develop new services and products, and to create efficient forms to merchandize their goods. A great portion of Facebook and Google’s revenues rely on the commercialization of information shared by their users inside their platforms (Taylor, 2020). Public agencies use private data to design policies and to propose novel regulations and procedures, and political parties and candidates contract marketing agencies to know electoral preferences by analyzing social media. However, there are potential hazards in how governments and corporations could misuse private data for surveillance activities or to indiscreetly sell sensitive data for advertising, as it happened in the well-known case of Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. Besides the importance of digital technologies for the global economy, and the growing market for digital assets and services in Latin America, the regulation of ecommerce, intellectual property, or private data in many countries is outdated and contradictory. In addition, the procedure to comply with the law and to pursue criminals is practically inoperant (Heinemeyer, 2019). At a user level, there is an upward apprehension towards how mobile applications and platforms could compromise people’s privacy, and how people are unprotected from electronic scams: the stealing of information to create fake accounts, spamming bots, and malicious actors who approach the users to obtain private data and commit fraud or extortion (Blankstein & Romero, 2019).

This topic is particularly relevant considering the privacy of children and young people who are more susceptible to being affected, when using digital media. There were even circumstances where little children are vulnerable, even before they were capable of using an electronic tablet. This is the case of “smart toys,” sophisticated dolls or plush bears which are able to record, answer, and process information between the children and the companies which develop these products (Yadron, 2016). These kinds of cases have triggered the public debate on the potential risks of using these technologies among children: from cyberbullying to grooming or sexting, or even exposure to inappropriate images, the loss of privacy and the misuse of their data (Correa, 2016). These discussions could be appreciated in more detail in Alfaro, Dodel and Cabello’s chapter “The reception of sexual messages among young Chileans and Uruguayans: Predictive factors and perception of harm,” which focuses on how children and teenagers are exposed to the exchange of sexual content through digital media. The other two chapters in this section debate the proper management of private and public data. They explore how governments are contending with the management of data and the settlement of policies to protect the integrity of people’s information and to increase governmental transparency. Hugo Claros in “Small Data, Big Data and the Ethical Challenges for a fragmented developing world: Peru’s need for diversity-aware public policies on information technologies and practices,” focuses on the analysis of the Peruvian case to explain how it is mandatory to democratize the promises to acquire value from data but, at the same time, to set a proper procedure that protects citizens from governmental and corporational misuse. A potential framework to guarantee the fair access to public information could stand, as Ruvalcaba, Gattoni, and Weyandt assert in their chapter “Open Government, Dilemmas, and Innovation at the Local Level: Comparing the Cases of Austin, Buenos Aires and Madrid, ” on the implementation of models that encourage innovation inside the public administration allowing access to public data, fighting corruption, and empowering citizens. But as it will be possible to observe in this section, despite efforts to implement efficient channels to manage and share public data and to improve transparency and accountability, there are still concerns about the lack of regulations, controls, and proper management systems that protects citizens’ data from potential misuse and exploitation.

Part II. Homeland security and human rights, a questioned balance?

Modern military forces have come to employ a mixed formula which includes diverse traditional and novel elements including robust intelligence services (employing, for example, vast systems of surveillance and electronic interception) to most effectively utilize more traditional ground forces (infantry and armaments) and coordinate close air support. In addition, governments and dissenting organizations organize information warfare campaigns to hack public agencies, steal information, and blackmail companies and governments (Rempfer, 2019). Organized cyber-attacks against foreign countries are a very common strategy to get classified information, damage computer systems that control oil refineries and airports, and even to directly influence the outcome of foreign presidential elections thanks to the spread of fake news supporting or defaming candidates (Vosoughi et al., 2018). The incorporation of information technologies into the development of new tactics and armaments has triggered a race among the global superpowers to produce novel weapons and systems that provide significant advantages towards contemporary and prospect adversaries.

This race to innovate and bring “disruptive technologies” into the battlefield is well-illustrated by the case of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as “drones.” Drones have been very successful in the security and military sectors. These devices are able to support sophisticated civil and public activities like surveillance, package distribution, and information gathering. In the frontline they are able to carry missiles and destroy targets at a distance (Dunn, 2013). In recent years, the use of armed predator, reaper, and other drones to target military and terrorist objectives has increased (Plaw et al., 2015) mainly because some countries have found them to be a cost-effective option both when killing terrorist leaders and when undertaking high risk missions that might otherwise endanger military personnel and civilians. There have also been recent cases in which cheap modified commercial drones have been used to threaten the lives of Latin American public figures – most famously Venezuelan Nicholas Maduro on August 4, 2018 (Levin & Beene, 2018). They also have been used by non-state actors to kill soldiers and to damage expensive military infrastructure (The Economist, 2018).

The more frequent use of drones and other emerging technologies by police forces in Latin America creates important legal challenges particularly regarding the protection of human rights and the sets of normative mores that secure the proper usage of drones to combat organized crime organizations that have access to strong firepower that are oftentimes equal to those used by the army (Cawley, 2017). In fact, the use of drones and of lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS) for political, security, and war-waging purposes have triggered intense concerns ranging from individual to national security, and even to regional and global stability. Raúl Salgado analyzes in his chapter “Ethical controversies about Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems: views of small South American States,” the ethical and legal dilemmas of incorporating LAWS for surveillance and defense activities, particularly the potential risk of causing the deaths of civilians. The author provides a strong analysis about the debates regarding these technologies in two Latin American countries, Ecuador and Uruguay. David Daltons’ chapter, “From Sensationalist Media to the Narcocorrido: Drones, Sovereignty, and Exception along the US-Mexican Border,” on the contrary, emphasizes how the incorporation of these devices has not only affected the relationship between the public forc...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Contributors
• 1 Introduction
• Part I Digital data and privacy, prospects, and barriers
• Part II Homeland security and human rights, a questioned balance?
• Part III Labor Markets, digital media, and emerging technologies: Potentials and risks
• Index