European Central: Belgrade, A City Under Surveillance
JovanaT
Increased surveillance has become an increasingly contentious issue in many places, and Belgrade is no exception. The decision to increase surveillance in the city has given city officials trouble and has yet to bring the benefits they may have hoped it would. The technology of the new surveillance also poses concerns over whether or not they can be fully used, or are human rights violations.
The city first sought to increase surveillance due to a fatal hit and run that happened in Belgrade. Luka Jovanović and his friends were driving home from a club on July 25th in 2014 when their car broke down. He was killed after another car hit him while he was pushing the car towards the emergency lane. Marko Milićev was the driver of the car and had six other passengers. Milićev instructed the passengers to say nothing of the car crash and escaped to Turkey and then traveled to Hong Kong before moving on to China. Security footage helped confirm he was the driver who hit and killed Luka Jovanović.
The case however can be considered one of the numerous scandals of President Vucic’s government. Milićev was only sentenced to four and a half years in prison, but Luka Jovanović’s family has a lot of unanswered questions to this day. Security footage that originally showed a countryman of one color was changed and showed a countryman in another color. It has never been explained why the original footage of the accident has been replaced with footage showing a vehicle of a different color.
Moving on to the increased surveillance, the city hoped that more surveillance would help solve more crimes along with serving as a deterrent to committing crimes in the first place. In 2019, Nebosja Stefanović, Serbia’s former Interior of the Minister, and Vladimir Rebić, the general police director announced that at 800 locations in Belgrade 1,000 smart cameras with advanced facial and license plate recognition capabilities would be installed. While these two individuals may have thought this was a good idea, not everyone did.
Milan Marinovic, the Serbian Commission for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection has been a vocal critic of the decision to install the cameras. This is because he says that Serbia has no legal basis in order to use facial recognition on the cameras. In order to use facial recognition, Serbia would need to pass a new law that would permit such technology.
Some feel that this is an unnecessary measure particularly because Belgrade is regarded as a safe European city.
Politicians have reacted to the criticism by claiming that the facial recognition software on the cameras has not been activated since the technology is not currently allowed under Serbian law. This however is quickly met with questions by concerned citizens regarding why cameras with facial recognition capabilities would be installed in the Serbian capital if not allowed under national law. While not necessarily appearing as a major point of interest, it is still valuable to inquire how much it costed to install cameras with facial recognition software that cannot be used legally. It currently appears that this amount is unknown. Cameras without facial recognition software most likely would have been cheaper, and anything to save on costs should be considered important to one of the poorer countries in Europe. The money could have been used on more worthwhile investments, particularly since Belgrade may not be able to use the facial recognition technology legally.
Another aspect that adds to the controversy of the cameras is that the cameras are from Huawei. Numerous European countries have abandoned using 5g technology through Huawei meanwhile Belgrade has embraced technology that critics view as intrusive. Many European Union countries followed the United States in banning Huawei over security concerns over potential spying, or at least limiting business Huawei can conduct. While this is happening, Belgrade has installed cameras with facial recognition capabilities and risks the potential of this being exploited by Huawei. Governments need to ensure that they can completely trust a company before buying technology like this.
While the point of other European countries shunning Huawei may not necessarily be seen as important for Serbian politicians or citizens, the potential implications it may have for EU membership should be of concern. The European Union is a strong advocate and protector of data rights for citizens. If the European Union has its way, this technology will not be legal. This means even if Serbia passed legislation to start using facial recognition on the cameras, this may be a short-lived endeavor if Serbia is serious about becoming a member of the European Union.
