New CELE publication: Intelligence based on open sources (OSINT) and human rights in Latin America: a comparative study in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Uruguay

Can governments “patrol” the internet? How far do the state's powers and technical capabilities extend to monitor citizens' online activity? Can security forces review citizens' social media activity preventively or do they need a court order? What restrictions do local laws and International Human Rights Law impose on network surveillance? Do states respect these limits?

As we already anticipated in a previous entry, during the years 2022 and 2023, CELE coordinated an investigation, carried out by a consortium of Latin American organizations, on the use of Open Source Intelligence (hereinafter OSINT, by its acronym in English) by states for the purposes of surveillance in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Uruguay.

Based on a series of journalistic publications related to the use of OSINT by the Argentine State between 2017 and 2020, at CELE we ask ourselves if the use of these techniques as part of the internal security policy constituted isolated events or if, for the On the contrary, they were part of a constant in the country and the region. We understood as extremely relevant the questions about what legislation governs this activity and what its impacts are on the rights of Internet users.

In the endeavor to delve deeper into these concerns, we count as our partners Artigo 19 (Brazil), Fundación Karisma (Colombia), Article 19 (Mexico) and Datysoc (Uruguay), who reviewed the relevant regulations and state conduct in their respective jurisdictions. . The consortium's work was guided by a work methodology developed by Eduardo Bertoni for CELE.

The report that we share today, prepared by CELE, uses as input the findings that arise from this joint effort of more than two years of research in five different countries. In addition to identifying the regulations applicable to the activity in the different jurisdictions studied, the study details the known instances of use of OSINT techniques by governments for surveillance purposes, the conditions under which this activity is generally carried out, and its impacts. in human rights. The work presents a conclusion in which common patterns that occur at the regional level are identified and recommendations are made to the states.

The work is available for reading and download this article.