5. Access Denied - Tech at the Border

Shownotes Episode 5

Transcript available HERE
Content Note: This episode mentions children in immigration detention and residential schools.

Borders have long been sites of colonial enforcement about who can come and go and how Indigenous peoples are treated. Canada is no exception. Increasingly, governments look to technology to make potentially life-or-death decisions about whether a person fleeing danger should be allowed to cross a border. What happens when that technology reinforces bias and makes unreliable choices? 

Author and activist Harsha Walia leads us through how borders came to exist and how Canada has used them to keep out "undesirables" from the country with tools like the Safe Third Country Agreement. We connect with Joy Henderson, an Afro-Indigenous person whose own experience with the oppressive power of borders means they're unable to claim status in Canada. We chat with Jamie Duncan, a PhD student and researcher about how deploying artificial intelligence at the border can reinforce systemic racism in some disturbing ways. And finally, Petra Molnar, a researcher who authored a report with Citizen Lab at the Unversity of Toronto, explains her work on how the border is often a test site for invasive surveillance technologies on asylum seekers.

Take Action

• Canada: End the Safe Third Country Agreement – Amnesty International Canada

Further Resources

• Canada: Leading human rights groups challenge Safe Third Country Agreement at Supreme Court – Amnesty International Canada
• REPORT – Canada: Abuse, Discrimination in Immigration Detention – Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International Canada
• BOOK – Harsha Walia “Border and Rule”
• REPORT – Bots at the Gate: a human rights analysis of automated decision-making in Canada’s immigration and refugee system – Petra Molnar
• Migrant Rights Network
• Canadian Council for Refugees – Safe Third Country Agreement

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