Argentina Surveillance Purchases Reach $1.2 Million Under Milei
Computer Weekly APAC cited Amnesty International research documenting at least $1.2 million in Argentine security-ministry surveillance purchases, new executive protocols and civil-society warnings over facial recognition, drones and social media monitoring.
Argentina's security ministry acquired at least $1.2 million of surveillance tools between 2024 and 2025 as the Milei administration expanded intelligence powers, Computer Weekly APAC reported from Amnesty International's new research on state surveillance.
Amnesty's 19 August report, Sensing the surveillance state, is built on interviews with journalists, activists and human rights defenders, procurement documents and records obtained through freedom of information requests.
The material describes social media monitoring tools, facial recognition systems and aerial drones added to a wider intelligence-gathering programme.
The technology purchases sit beside institutional changes.
Executive decrees and resolutions created new agencies, set protocols for federal law enforcement, restructured the National Intelligence System, assigned budgets and supported procurements tied to the new surveillance functions.
The human-rights group said those steps were taken without National Congress participation and with limited public information on oversight, impact assessments or safeguards.
The result, in its account, is a digital and physical monitoring system that can collect and process information on individuals, conduct facial recognition, track movements and reinforce surveillance in public spaces, including protests.
Protest groups described the effect in operational terms.
Ana Tapia, a member of the Insurgent Pensioners collective, told Amnesty that the pension-cut protesters who gather weekly outside Congress in Buenos Aires had been identified for a long time and had seen drones hover close above them.
Matias Darabos of the Association Against Institutional Violence described filming and pointing by authorities during marches where his group records police conduct.
Matt Mahmoudi, Amnesty's researcher and adviser on AI and human rights, framed the capabilities as part of state control aimed at dissent, protest movements and marginalised groups.
Amnesty is calling for Argentina to prohibit remote biometric recognition when it is used for mass or discriminatory targeted surveillance, and to set procurement, import, export and use rules for surveillance technologies.
The Argentina findings also draw on a June 2026 United Nations study that treated digital surveillance as a systemic democratic threat rather than only a targeted measure.
That study identified chilling effects on behaviour, with higher risks for marginalised and racialised communities and for people seeking accountability for human-rights violations or corruption.
For security and policy teams, the article's concrete record is the combination of procurement, executive authority and public-space monitoring.
Argentina has not published the oversight, impact-assessment or safeguard record that would show how the new surveillance powers are constrained.
