On the 5th of November, Homo Digitalis filed a petition to the Greek Parliament (protocol number: 4661) concerning the use of the “IBORDERCTRL” system at the Greek borders, posing specific questions to the responsible Minister.

According to the official page of the European Commission and the one of the “IBORDERCTRL” for the pilot application of this system in Greece, which was funded by the H2020 program with the amount of 4.501.877 euros, the system will be used in the Greek borders with Albania, Bulgaria, FYROM and Turkey in pedestrians, cars, buses, train passengers and merchandise trains that cross these borders.

For the first 3 categories responsible will be KE.ME.A, which is surveilled by the Minister of Public Safety.  As for the other 2 categories KE.ME.A will be responsible in cooperation with ΤΡΑΙΝΟΣΕ.ΑΕ, which is now a limited liability company belonging to the Italian group Ferreovie dello Stato Italiane Group.

The system IBORDERCTRL is known to be able to identify false statements of the passengers based on their facial expressions. However the 10 documents that evaluate the technical specifications of this system (Requirement Analysis Report, Reference Architecture and components specifications, Data Collection Devices – specification, First version of all technological tools and subsystems, Second version of all technological tools and subsystems for integration, First version of the iBorderCtrl software platform, Second version of the iBorderCtrl software platform, Integration Plan, Early version of the integrated prototype και Experimental Design for Pilot Deployment and Evaluation) remain strictly confidential.

As a result, it is impossible for the scientific experts to inspect and confirm the claims of the developers of this system. Therefore, its credibility and reliability cannot be proven.

Moreover, all the research concerning its progress and development (Periodic Progress Report, Annual Report, Periodic Progress Report 2, Annual Report 2) also remain confidential, fact that makes the inspection of its technical specifications impossible.

Finally, all the files of legal and ethics evaluation also remain confidential (Ethics advisor’s first report, Ethics of profiling, the risk of stigmatization of individuals and mitigation plan, Ethics Advisor, EU wide legal and ethical review report) thus nobody can confirm if that system is compatible with the legislation of the European Union.

Specifically, it is impossible to control and inspect if there is a specific notice for the subject of the data concerning the right of reassurance of human interference, the right of expressing an opinion, the right to claim the reasoning of the decision made from the evaluation of the system IBORDERCTRL and the right to challenge that decision.

Furthermore, due to the confidential character of the legal and ethics evaluation research, there is no guarantee that the system IBOREDERCTRL doesn’t conclude in a decision based on personality traits parameters, which are naturally sensitive concerning the fundamental rights and liberties according to the articles 10 and 11 of the Directive 2016/680 and the terms established by the Articles 21 and 52 of the EU Fundamental Rights Charter.

Therefore, the European citizens payed 4.501.877 euros for this system via the H2020 program having zero access to its technical specifications to control the credibility of the system, nor can they confirm if its use is actually legal as access to any legal review is confidential as we mentioned above.

On the contrary, according to the European Commission website, the entities that participated may gain the amount of 118 billion euros due to the technical know-how that they provided and the growing market of the border security systems.

You can see the whole content of our Report and our questions to the Minister in charge in Greek HERE.