A/HRC/45/9 demand for its services. Thus, a system with self-reinforcing dynamics and lock-in effects has been created,30 with wide-ranging negative human rights impacts. B. Border security technologies and monitoring services 39. Border security technologies and monitoring services accompany and reinforce the visible physical border infrastructure. Purchased primarily from companies specializing in information and advanced technologies, technologies such as radar and ground sensor systems, cameras equipped with night vision, electro-optical systems and high-resolution imaging are part of high-tech surveillance and detection systems that track regular and irregular movements, often providing real-time information on virtually all movements within an area of coverage. Dual-use items, sold as having been battlefield tested, have been put to increasing use in immigration and border management. One of the most commonly used technologies is drones, which are also employed in armed conflict. Operated by national or regional border officials or by private contractors, they have become a central tool in border surveillance operations. This has had the dangerous effect of bringing military concepts and technologies into the field of migration. 40. Today, an essential component of this regime is biometric data. Data gathered enables States to identify and verify or authenticate migrants based on physiological and behavioural characteristics. It is used for a variety of purposes, including in airport and other border controls, visa applications, age determination assessments, asylum procedures, refugee registration and deportation decisions. Combined with other personal and private information obtained through a myriad of sources, companies facilitate the collection and storage in databases of vast amounts of data about migrants that is then processed, analysed and exchanged. Companies have developed platforms that enable users to search across databases, allowing them to cross-reference data collected for different purposes. This push towards interoperability carries risks, for example, due to greater interactions between law enforcement and immigration databases. Among other things, immigration authorities have allegedly used this information to track, detain and deport migrants, including children. 31 41. In the absence of adequate privacy safeguards in many countries, there are risks that data is gathered in a non-transparent manner and without informed consent, stored for long periods, and becomes outdated even while the database is still in use. Decisions taken during screening processes for migrants, including refugees and asylum seekers, that rely heavily on such technology with its presumed rationality and superiority, lack nuanced human judgment and risk potentially serious errors. Given the high-tech nature of such systems, States may lack adequate legislation, knowledge and expertise to provide effective oversight of these operations. Moreover, abuses of the right to privacy generated by these systems are likely to go underreported as migrants may be unaware of their rights or unable to exercise them due to the vulnerable situations in which they find themselves. 32 42. Border control implemented through advanced technologies may often be invisible to the public, but it has a far greater reach than physical barriers, and the potential to violate rights in very particular ways. It not only enables the transmission of real-time information on the movement of people and vessels along coastal and land borders, but often penetrates into border regions and further afield. 33 This information is shared among border, security and other authorities within the same country, and increasingly between States. Companies are making constant advances in technologies, creating demand for more sophisticated and updated models that promise greater effectiveness, thereby ensuring a constant flow of business. 43. The focus on security approaches, realized through a reliance on surveillance technologies developed, maintained and sometimes operated by private companies, facilitates physical and moral distancing. It renders migrants as objects of surveillance and 30 31 32 33 10 Georg Menz, “The neoliberalized State and the growth of the migration industry”, in The Migration Industry and the Commercialization of International Migration, Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen and Nina Nyberg Sorensen, eds. (London and New York, Routledge, 2013). See submission by Mijente. See submission by Privacy International. See submission by Transnational Institute.