At 3:45 in the morning, a call came from the Atlantic on October 26. A canoe with 150 people had left Senegal for the Canary Islands. Its occupants, exhausted after five days of crossing, asked for help. Through a satellite phone, the migrants were able to contact the NGO Alarm Phone, which has an emergency line for those in danger at the ocean. They were also able to provide its exact location. However, there is no evidence that rescue means have been activated nor is there any news about the boat. Satellite phones are, in many cases, the only tool that migrants have to ask for help and save their lives. This is how the research explains it Digital technology for immigration control on the southern border of Spainwhich concludes that in the Canary Islands the use of technology for border control and not to facilitate rescues prevails.
Satellite phones provide 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. Trip organizers are the ones who usually provide these devices. Especially for people leaving Senegal, Mauritania or Gambia, “it continues to be one of the safest methods for migrants to orient themselves during their journey and reach the islands safely,” the report states. 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 point, the role of NGOs is key. Civil Guard estimates collected by the investigation indicate that 75% of the alerts they receive about boats on the route come from organizations such as Alarm Phone or Caminando Fronteras. In other cases, it is the survivors themselves who are already sheltered in the Archipelago who know that there is a boat in the Atlantic because a friend or family member is traveling on it.
The effectiveness of radars
The Civil Guard has its own search mechanism: the SIVE (Integrated External Surveillance System). This system is the main technological tool to monitor the arrival of boats to the Canary Islands and has 24 stations spread throughout the Archipelago: 17 in the province of Las Palmas and seven in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Specifically, they are usually near the coast or in mountainous areas. When the radar detects an object in the sea, it sends an alert to rescue coordination centers.
The range of the SIVE is limited and ranges 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 the SIVE cameras is subject to weather conditions. “In adverse conditions such as fog or haze (common in the eastern islands), the range can be reduced by half,” says the research. When the images are not clear, the decision to activate the rescue protocols depends on the Civil Guard. On occasions, large waves have been confused with boats and, on other occasions, the radar has 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 shipwreck left 25 dead. In 2018, on the same island, a barge in which seven migrants lost their lives went unnoticed. As the Government of Spain justified at the time, the radar did not detect the vessel due to the bad weather conditions. “Radars are effective at locating large vessels, but they present difficulties in detecting those that are small.” […] In conditions of intense waves, the radar emits the echo, but the sea continually reflects the signal, which causes the system to issue constant alerts for non-existent objects,” the report states.
At this point, worker training is key. The investigation concludes that border guards working with SIVE need up to ten years to master the system. Not only the handling of the software, but also to understand the border environment. In the Canary Islands, training is not continuous. According to the study, the instability in the maintenance of the SIVE and the replacement of parts also makes it difficult for it to function “at its maximum capacity.” According to a member of the Civil Guard, they are committed to reusing parts from other devices instead of replacing the systems completely.
Despite these shortcomings, the tool has become more sophisticated over the years until it incorporates Artificial Intelligence (AI). Now, AI-based algorithms are used to classify vessels as “suspicious.” This technology analyzes the silhouette and size of the boats detected by SIVE to determine whether they are merchant vessels, drug trafficking boats or small boats. Some of the indicators used for this are the trajectory, the area where it was detected or its speed. “A vessel that comes from the open sea is an indication that it could be suspicious,” the study points out.
Identification of migrants
Technology goes through the entire immigration process. One of the most “critical” points is the identification of migrants. The majority of them travel without documentation and set foot on dry land disoriented and with difficulties communicating due to having experienced a complicated and, in many cases, traumatic journey. This, added to the manual data collection by the agents, means that the personal data of the survivors contains errors that remain throughout all their administrative procedures. In the case of minors, these gaps can have worse consequences, since the age at which they are reviewed determines their future.
As researchers have been able to verify, when migrants arrive at port without exactly remembering their date of birth, the Police only record one year, ignoring the month of birth, a piece of information that is key to classifying the person as an adult or a minor. . After receiving the first assistance at the dock, survivors spend a maximum of 72 hours in police centers, where fingerprints are still taken with ink and not with the digital scanning tools used in police stations. This, added to the high number of people who usually live 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. Furthermore, the tools available to it are focused on reinforcing surveillance and border control against the rescue of people who migrate. The effectiveness of these resources depends at the same time on the technical training of the agents. For this reason, despite the application of digital surveillance, crossing the Atlantic remains “extremely dangerous.”
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