Tackling Arbitrary Digital Surveillance in the Americas | Electronic Frontier Foundation

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Tackling Arbitrary Digital Surveillance in the Americas

WHITEPAPER

By Veridiana Alimonti<br>April 13, 2026

Tackling Arbitrary Digital Surveillance in the Americas

Español

Contents<br>Introduction<br>Data Privacy Protections in the American Convention on Human Rights<br>Vital Privacy Safeguards Under State Digital Surveillance<br>2.1. Clear and Precise Legal Framework<br>2.2. Legitimate Aims<br>2.3. Adequate, Necessary, and Proportionate<br>2.4. Essential Controls<br>2.5. Independent Civilian Oversight<br>2.6. Additional Safeguards for Personal Data Processing<br>2.7. Right to Informational Self-Determination<br>Transparency and Participation<br>Remedy and Reparation of Surveillance Abuses<br>Conclusion<br>Introduction<br>Across the Americas, poor accountability, feeble control mechanisms, and insufficient legal frameworks constantly lead to human rights violations in the context of public security, law enforcement, and intelligence activities. The increased capabilities of digital surveillance are a central part of current abuses, such as the ability to profile and classify individuals; monitor people’s movements, relations and routines; tap into different kinds of communications; and infer or presumably predict behaviours with harmful consequences to people.<br>In response, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has compiled this guide focusing on data privacy and access to information guarantees to provide concrete, actionable guidance to governments in the Americas to curb the vicious cycle of state digital surveillance abuses. This document outlines which safeguards and institutional measures should be in place to protect individuals across the region; and details the rules, parameters, and standards established within the Inter-American Human Rights System as an input to overcoming current pernicious practices and trends. While it pinpoints essential required guarantees, it does not intend to be exhaustive or exclude other important measures not explicitly mentioned on these pages.<br>This guide builds upon a comprehensive legal foundation pertaining to the protection of individuals in the face of state digital surveillance and security-related activities. Recent findings from the Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (“IACHR”, “Inter-American Commission” or “Commission”) concluded that:<br>“[D]igital surveillance technologies have become a systemic threat to human rights across the Americas, fundamentally altering the relationship between states and their citizens. The evidence presented in this report demonstrates that surveillance practices previously considered exceptional under international human rights law have become increasingly normalized, creating a permissive environment for continuous violations of fundamental rights.”<br>The Special Rapporteur emphasized that the systematic nature of surveillance across the region reveals fundamental gaps in legal frameworks, oversight mechanisms, and accountability systems that must be addressed holistically. As the Rapporteur pointed out, the result is not only individual rights violations but the systematic erosion of democratic institutions and the rule of law.<br>Over a decade ago, the Inter-American Commission’s report on citizen security and human rights similarly stressed human rights as essential limits to prevent that the powers granted by law to state agents to defend everyone’s security are, instead, used by security forces to subjugate people’s rights. Therefore, the guarantees enshrined in the American Convention on Human Rights serve as guide for security forces’ activities in their compliance with human rights.<br>Furthermore, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (“Inter-American Court” or “Court”) has interpreted the Convention to establish crucial parameters for fulfilling conventional rights and principles in the face of state surveillance. Particularly, the Court’s sentence in the Case of Members of the “José Alvear Restrepo” Lawyers Collective v. Colombia (CAJAR v. Colombia) elaborated on...