At 3:45 a.m., a call arrived from across the Atlantic on October 26. A canoe carrying 150 people had left Senegal bound for the Canary Islands. Its occupants, exhausted after five days of crossing, asked for help. Using a satellite phone, the migrants were able to contact the NGO Alarm Phone, which has an emergency line for people in danger at the edge of the ocean. They were also able to provide its exact location. However, there is no indication that rescue means have been activated and no news from the boat. Satellite phones are, in many cases, the only tool migrants have to seek help and save their lives. Here’s How Research Explains It Digital technology for immigration control at the southern border of Spainwhich concludes that in the Canary Islands the use of technology is predominant for border control and not to facilitate rescues.
Satellite phones offer the only coverage available on the high seas, explains this study prepared by the entities EuroMed Rights and AlgoRace with testimonies from agents of the National Police, the Civil Guard, lawyers and other professionals involved in the management of the migration phenomenon. It is generally the travel organizers who provide these devices. Especially for people leaving Senegal, Mauritania or Gambia, “this continues to be one of the safest methods for migrants to orient themselves during their journey and reach the islands safely,” the report says. . However, those who use them risk being prosecuted for human trafficking.
These calls require translators on the other end of the line to interpret the transmitted coordinates. At this stage, the role of NGOs is essential. Civil Guard estimates collected in the investigation indicate that 75% of the alerts it receives about boats on the road come from organizations such as Alarm Phone or Caminando Fronteras. In other cases, it is the survivors themselves, already sheltered in the archipelago, who know that there is a boat in the Atlantic because a friend or a member of their family is traveling on board.
The effectiveness of radars
The Civil Guard has its own research mechanism: the SIVE (Integrated External Surveillance System). This system is the main technological tool for monitoring the arrival of boats in the Canary Islands and has 24 stations distributed throughout the archipelago: 17 in the province of Las Palmas and seven in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. More specifically, they are usually found near coastlines or in mountainous areas. When the radar detects an object in the sea, it sends an alert to the emergency coordination centers.
The range of SIVE is limited and extends between 19 and 22 kilometers. To monitor longer distances, authorities use ships, planes and, in some cases, drones. On the other hand, the effectiveness of SIVE cameras is subject to weather conditions. “Under adverse conditions such as fog or mist (common in the eastern islands), the range can be reduced by half,” the research states. When the images are not clear, the decision to activate rescue protocols depends on the Civil Guard. Sometimes large waves were mistaken for boats, and on other occasions the radar failed to detect the presence of boats with people on board.
In 2009, a SIVE in Lanzarote received thousands of signals produced by strong waves, but one of these alerts corresponded to a boat. The workers did not initiate the rescue protocol and the sinking caused 25 deaths. In 2018, on the same island, a barge in which seven migrants lost their lives went unnoticed. As the Spanish government justified at the time, the radar did not detect the ship due to bad weather conditions. “Radar is effective at locating large ships, but presents difficulties in detecting small ones. » […] In intense wave conditions, the radar emits the echo, but the sea continually reflects the signal, causing the system to issue constant alerts for nonexistent objects,” the report said.
At this stage, worker training is essential. The investigation concludes that it takes up to ten years for border guards working with SIVE to master the system. Not only handling the software, but also understanding the border environment. In the Canaries, training is not continuous. According to the study, instability in SIVE’s maintenance and parts replacement also makes it difficult to operate “at its maximum capacity.” According to a member of the Civil Guard, they are committed to reusing parts from other devices instead of completely replacing systems.
Despite these flaws, the tool has become more sophisticated over the years to include Artificial Intelligence (AI). Now, AI-based algorithms are used to classify ships as “suspicious.” This technology analyzes the silhouette and size of boats detected by SIVE to determine whether they are merchant ships, drug trafficking boats or small boats. Some of the indicators used for this purpose are the trajectory, the area where it was detected or its speed. “A ship coming from the open sea is an indicator that it could be suspicious,” underlines the study.
Identification of migrants
Technology runs through the entire immigration process. One of the most “critical” points is the identification of migrants. The majority of them travel without papers and land on dry land disoriented and with communication difficulties due to a complicated and, in many cases, traumatic journey. This, added to the manual collection of data by agents, means that survivors’ personal data contains errors which persist throughout their administrative procedures. In the case of minors, these deviations can have more serious consequences, since the age at which they are revised determines their future.
As the researchers found, when migrants arrive at port without remembering their exact date of birth, the police only record a year, ignoring the month of birth, essential information for classifying the person as an adult or as an adult. minor. . After receiving first aid at the dock, survivors spend a maximum of 72 hours in police centers, where fingerprints are always taken with ink and not with the digital scanning tools used in police stations. This, added to the high number of people who usually reside in these centers, slows down the affiliation process and the entry of people into the reception network.
The analysis concludes that the Canary Islands lack advanced technology. In addition, the tools at its disposal aim to strengthen surveillance and border control against the rescue of people who migrate. The effectiveness of these means depends at the same time on the technical training of the agents. For this reason, despite the application of digital surveillance, the Atlantic crossing remains “extremely dangerous”.
