Comment by Mher Hakobyan

There is a risk that the European Parliament will end important human-rights protections achieved during the committee vote of 11 May, and open the door to the use of technologies that are in direct conflict with international human rights law. [...] Legislative bodies must ban racist profiling and risk-assessment systems that label migrants and asylum seekers as ‘threats’, as well as technologies that predict border movements and deny people the right to asylum. The European Parliament has a duty to defend and enforce human rights, and anything short of an outright ban on technologies used for mass surveillance, racist policing and profiling would fail that duty. EU lawmakers must also ensure that technologies banned in the Union are not exported to perpetrate human-rights abuses elsewhere, and that this law protects and promotes the human rights of all people, not only those in Europe. Unverified source (2023)