A new report from the Government Accounting Office reveals that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plans to nearly triple the number of surveillance towers along U.S. borders, from the current 830 to 2,300 by 2034.

DHS expects to expend $1 billion in taxpayer dollars for this dangerous expansion of a surveillance network indiscriminately trained on towns, school playgrounds, backyards, and vehicles—threatening the privacy and civil liberties of everyone in the border regions.

The towers are planned as part of DHS component Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) Integrated Surveillance Tower (IST) program, which captures images of people and vehicles. The IST program operates autonomous surveillance towers, consisting of autonomous surveillance towers, consisting of AI-based systems using radar, thermal infrared and optical systems to track targets over long distances; integrated fixed towers, optimized for surveilling foot traffic and vehicles; and remote video surveillance systems, which can often be found very close to the border fence in Arizona, including residential neighborhoods where cameras are capable of spying on homes on both sides of the border. (For a description and photos of these technologies, see EFF’s updated guide to surveillance at the U.S.-Mexico Border.)

DHS expects to purchase more long-range autonomous towers and to upgrade existing towers with autonomous capabilities. The $1 billion comes from the so-called One Big Beautiful Act—a massive tax and spending law that President Trump signed in 2025, the report says.

The explosive expansion of border surveillance is a digital dumpster fire for human rights and civil liberties. It’s not just surveillance towers; drones, aerostats, surveillance vehicles, ground sensors, game cameras, and license plate readers are also part of the vast taxpayer-funded infrastructure that threatens all those who live, work, or seek refuge in the borderlands. This technology isn’t exclusive to U.S. federal agencies: it’s also deployed by state and local law enforcement, and even by governments on the Mexican side.

Since 2022, EFF has studied and mapped surveillance technology along the U.S.-Mexico border using public records research, open-source intelligence, and fact-finding trips, and created a handy interactive map to provide researchers and journalists with the tools they need to analyze the impact of U.S. border security policy. We have also documented the different types of surveillance technology in a zine, "Surveillance Technology at the U.S.-Mexico Border." We updated the publication earlier this year to help people identify the machinery of homeland security by adding more models of surveillance towers, newly deployed military tech, and a gallery of disguised trail cams and automated license plate readers.

EFF’s work includes defending the rights of individuals whose devices have been searched or seized upon entering the country; pushing back on the collection of biometric and social media identifiers; and developing digital security guidance for people crossing borders.

With the web of surveillance tech at the borders about to explode, EFF will continue to investigate and expose it and find ways to fight back with the communities that live in the shadow of this technological threat to human rights.

Users are always seeking more control over their social networking experience to make it better, whether to improve privacy or enhance flexibility. Interoperability between social networking platforms like Facebook and TikTok has so many benefits that solve those issues.  

Say you’re on multiple platforms because you have friends you follow on different networks, but you’ve decided to choose one platform with better privacy practices. With interoperability, you could switch and still interact with friends who remain on larger platforms. It could also enable independent apps with better privacy controls and more user choice. These are the untapped possibilities that could benefit users in the European Union under the 2022 Digital Markets Act (DMA).  

Yet, the European Commission, in its first review of the DMA, announced in April it had decided not to extend the DMA’s interoperability mandate to social networking and didn’t give a deadline or a timeline for enforcing that part of the Act. The Commission said “there is no clear demand” from users and businesses for social networking interoperability and, in any case, it’s too technically complex at the moment. Meanwhile, the Big Tech platforms that have been slow-walking interoperability over the last two years, erecting a myriad of hurdles for users seeking more freedom to choose other platforms, get a pass.

This is a huge disappointment and a missed opportunity by the Commission. Interoperability dismantles one of the biggest barriers faced by users who want to leave the tech giants’ platforms: the choice between changing to a platform you prefer or staying behind on a platform where all your friends, communities, and customers are.

The DMA, which went into force in 2024, aims to foster more choices for European Union users and encourage competition and innovation by forcing so-called gatekeeper platforms like Meta, Apple, and Google, to open their ecosystems to competitors. The regulation does a great deal to foster the integration of competing services and devices with the ecosystems of very large online platforms that act as gatekeepers. It even requires interoperability for messaging services, despite the significant technical and privacy challenges involved.

So, it’s odd that the Commission is using complexity as a shield against taking on social networking interoperability. The internet already runs on complex interoperable systems. Approaches like ActivityPub, the decentralized networking protocol behind the “Fediverse,” which gave rise to decentralized networks like Mastodon, already exist. The DMA shouldn’t mandate a specific protocol, but it can require meaningful interoperability outcomes.

The argument that there’s no real demand for social networking interoperability also falls flat. Users want the ability to move across platforms, choose the content they’d like to see from platforms, and not be tied down to a single platform. But there’s no way to get there—the platforms are doing little to open their social networking ecosystems. And now you have the DMA’s enforcer saying it’s not going to make them change. Demand for alternatives won’t materialize at scale until users see real progress towards interoperability, something the Commission has the power to do.

Having decided there’s little demand and too much complexity to proceed with mandating social networking interoperability, the Commission said it “will continue to monitor and assess how these services evolve.” This wait-and-see-posture only hurts users and strengthens and further entrenches Big Tech incumbents.

The DMA is supposed to center on the rights of technology users and be the pathway to an internet experience where you decide which software runs on your devices, where it’s easy to find the best products and services, and where you can leave a platform for a better one without forfeiting your social relationships.

Meanwhile, Big Tech is also resisting the DMA’s openness requirements. For example, Apple is supposed to be opening up iOS devices to rival app stores. Yet, the smartphone giant’s plan for opening its App Store levies junk fees and onerous conditions on app makers and is effectively impossible for any competitor to use.

It’s not just Apple pushing back against DMA enforcement. Meta's response is a “pay for privacy “system, in which users who do not consent to Meta’s surveillance will have to pay to use the service, or be blocked from it. Whether their plan complies with the DMA remains under review.

Nowhere in the DMA does it say social networking companies get to install a toll booth for users seeking to benefit from privacy rights the regulation grants them. The future EU Digital Fairness Act is another opportunity to protect users from such practices by declaring them unfair.

The Commission has responded to these developments with investigations, preliminary rulings, and fines. Meanwhile, users are missing out on greater choice and flexibility in how they communicate and connect online.  

Seeking transparency and accountability in Paraguay’s use of facial recognition, EFF, the Association of Technology, Education, Development, Research, Communication (TEDIC), and the Centre for Justice and International Law (CEJIL) filed a complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights against the state for arbitrarily denying access to information about its implementation and use of the technology as a tool for mass surveillance that erodes people’s privacy rights. 

The case involves the Ministry of the Interior and National Police’s installation in 2019 of surveillance cameras with facial recognition technology in Asunción. Maricarmen Sequera, a lawyer and executive director of TEDIC, filed an information request with the ministry seeking details and protocols about the implementation and use of facial recognition systems and the personal data processing involved. 

The request sought information about, among other things, whether the state had conducted human rights or data protection impact assessments, as well as if it had developed measures and protocols for avoiding abuses, illicit uses of personal data, and other risks in the deployment of the facial recognition system.

The state denied most of the information requested, arguing that implementation details, protocols, and the processing of individuals' personal data were confidential security information. TEDIC contested the secrecy in courts, but the analyses lagged and ultimately sustained the denial of information. 

The petition filed last Friday (19) cites Inter-American standards upholding the public’s right to access information, particularly in relation to national security, that the Paraguayan authorities disregarded in denying TEDIC’s information request. The petition also argues that the refusal of information violated privacy and the right to informational self-determination.

The petition asks the Commission to recognize a violation of those rights and require the state to deliver the information requested. Further, the petition seeks an order compelling the state to adopt mandatory permanent mechanisms of active transparency regarding the acquisition, contracting, implementation, financing, functioning, and use of surveillance technologies by public bodies, especially those that incorporate processing of biometric data or artificial intelligence systems. 

It also asks the Commission to order the state to mandatory procedures for human rights impact assessments prior to acquiring and using surveillance technologies, particularly those that collect biometric data or use artificial intelligence.

The state’s lack of transparency in this case is not an isolated incident, both in Paraguay and in Latin America, where opacity in matters of security and surveillance is the unsettling rule. The situation gets worse with the increasing normalization of intrusive surveillance technologies by states in the region.

The Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission emphasized that states should disclose surveillance capabilities and contracts, and acknowledge state use of surveillance technologies at a meaningful level of detail, to facilitate essential public debate on the necessary limitations of surveillance in democratic societies and ensure compliance with international human rights law.

We hope that the Inter-American Commission upholds the robust safeguards in the Inter-American System and advances access to information and privacy rights in a case that can set a crucial precedent for the region.