WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE UNITED KINGDOM - STATEWATCH - issue 25/19 8 December 2025

 

issue 25/19 8 December welcome Our apologies that this bulletin did not reach you on Friday - wider problems with the web meant our website was unavailable, so we are sending it to you now. Dear Statewatcher, Last week, we released new research that shows how powerful states and international organisations are developing new transnational security networks. The results of their efforts: systems for the surveillance of international travel, the reinforcement of state borders, and the development and interconnection of ‘watchlists’ of known, alleged and suspected terrorists. At a time when authoritarian and anti-democratic politics are spreading fast, these tools and technologies pose grave dangers to civil liberties and human rights. You can explore the research on a dedicated website, and we encourage anyone interested to contact us to think about next steps. A prime example of the abuse of counter-terrorism powers comes from Niger, where Moussa Tchangari of fellow Migreurop member, Alternative Espaces Citoyens, has now been arbitrarily detained for more than a year. Along with the rest of the Migreurop network, we once again call for his immediate release and the dropping of the absurd charges against him. Tchangari was detained after a military coup in Niger deposed the government. That led the EU to halt its migration cooperation with the country, though not without some reluctance. Cooperation with Niger was part of the EU’s plan to outsource its border and migration controls. Elsewhere, the plan continues apace, as shown in the latest issue of our monthly bulletin border externalisation. Amongst other things, the bulletin reveals plans to radically expand the mandate of EU border agency Frontex, as governments seek to ramp up powers of detention and deportation. This will be one of many major issues on our agenda in the year to come – as always, you can support our work on these vital topics by making a donation. Chris Jones Director, Statewatch make a donation in EUR >> make a donation GBP >> news UK: Joint briefing on the “do not introduce digital ID cards” parliamentary petition debate In September, the government announced plans for a new digital ID scheme that would be mandatory for ‘right to work’ checks by 2029. A petition against the proposal accrued nearly three million signatures, making it the fourth largest petition in British history and the second largest non-Brexit petition. It highlights problems and fundamental changes in the relationship between the state and the individual. read more >> How the EU migration pact will increase harms in Serbia and along the Balkan route The EU's Pact on Migration and Asylum is likely to send the situation for migrants and refugees in the Balkans from bad to and a further closure of civic space. Real protection requires a different approach. read more >> Border externalisation: radical expansion of Frontex powers in the works The latest issue of our bulletin on EU border externalisation policies Includes: council discussion documents on upcoming Frontex mandate revision; the IOM presents a dire picture for returnees to Afghanistan; and an internal human rights presentation warns the EU is "not there yet" read more >> Networks of (in)security: how global counter-terrorism and security norms threaten civic space and human rights Global counter-terrorism and security norms are propelling the introduction of pre-emptive, automated and algorithmic forms of surveillance and profiling, says new research published today by Statewatch. This is reinforcing racism and discrimination, inhibiting free movement, and giving authoritarian states new tools of control. The research calls for an organised response to this long-term state project, and sets out some guiding questions for future work. read more >> UK: Inquiry needed over lack of enforcement against "egregious and repeated data breaches" More than 70 civil society organisations, academics and data protection experts, including Statewatch, have called for an inquiry into the collapse in enforcement activity by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The call comes after the ICO failed to launch an investigation after the Ministry of Defence published a spreadsheet containing the details of over 19,000 people fleeing the Taliban in Afghanistan. read more >> what we're watching This is our bi-weekly round up of all the important news, events, and resources we've come across over the last two weeks. Find this resource useful? If so, please consider making a donation to support us. borders and frontiers UK: The Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 is in force – what has changed? The latest of the – apparently now annual – immigration and asylum Bills has completed its journey through parliament, as the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 received Royal Assent yesterday. Read more Children reaching UK by small boat face sim card mouth searches Officers will have the power to make new arrivals remove an outer coat, jacket or gloves at UK ports to search for devices. They will also be able to conduct searches inside someone’s mouth for a hidden sim card or small electronic device. Read more EU capitals eye Frontex revamp with AI tools and new border force The EU is quietly considering a major shift in Frontex’s role, with capitals examining whether the agency’s future standing corps should include drone operators, cyber-monitoring units, and AI-powered surveillance teams, according to new Council discussion documents seen by Euractiv. Read more Italy: SOS Humanity in vain calls for closer port for disembarkation of the 85 people rescued The Italian authorities have again attempted to stifle the activities of a civilian rescue ship in the Mediterranean by assigning a distant port of disembarkation. At the end of November, SOS Humanity had 85 rescued people on board and was more than 1,300 kilometres from Ortona, the assigned port of disembarkation. Read more coercion and control UK: Built to Harm: how women's prisons take lives Women who died in prison could still be alive today if the government had listened to calls from campaigners and years of evidence to end the imprisonment of women. Instead, Built to Harm: how women's prisons take lives shows how the government prioritised tweaks to women’s prisons that have failed to prevent deaths and harm. Read more Justice secretary wants jury trials scrapped except in most serious cases Justice Secretary David Lammy is proposing to massively restrict the ancient right to a jury trial by only guaranteeing it for defendants facing rape, murder, manslaughter or other cases passing a public interest test. Read more UK: MP demands answers over London protest tractor ban What began as a coordinated demonstration ended with police seizures of tractors, arrests, and growing calls from MPs for clarity on what prompted the sudden reversal of permission for tractors on Whitehall. Read more UK: Government plans new powers to label dissenting movements as ‘subversion’ If terrorism law has expanded to encompass direct action groups, surely the category of ‘state threat’ is even more potent in inviting the criminalisation of ideological opposition itself. Read more Interpol general assembly approves new five-year strategy Interpol's general assembly in Morocco approved a new five-year strategy for the policing agency. The strategy, entitled "Together Against Crime", has not yet been made public. Read more Slovakia: New law allows clergy to enter clinical spaces without patient consent Amid the weakening of constitutional safeguards in Slovakia, the recently amended Statute on Healthcare now allows a person authorised to perform clerical activities to enter an institutional health care facility, provided that their presence does not disrupt care activities. Read more From Resistance to Repression: A Year of Britain’s Attack on Direct Action An overview of some of the increasingly repressive action taken by the British government in response to protests against its complicity in Israel's war against the Palestinians. Read more crime and collusion Police raid EU External Action Service, College of Europe in sweeping fraud probe Belgian police raided the EU’s diplomatic service in Brussels on Tuesday, along with the College of Europe in Bruges and private homes, as part of a probe into alleged misuse of EU funds, according to people familiar with the investigation and witnesses. Read more Germany sends Libyan man accused of war crimes to the ICC in The Hague to face trial Khaled Mohamed Ali El Hishri is accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity including murder, torture and rape in a prison in Libya. Read more discrimination and racism Europol and Spanish National Police disrupt activities of far-right terrorist group 'The Base' The operation took place over three days in Madrid and Valencia, resulting in significant seizures and the arrest of three suspected far-right extremists on 25 November 2025. Read more German far-right party sets up its new youth wing as thousands protest A confident far-right Alternative for Germany set up its new youth organization on Saturday even as thousands of protesters converged on the western city of Giessen, where the party held its meeting, some of them clashing with police. Read more resistance and solidarity Western Sahara and the EU’s moral stress test Mohamed Elbaika, an independent activist from western sahara expose how the Commission tries to bypass a long line of rulings from the CJEU on circumventing trade between the EU and Morocco to account for the unresolved status of Western Sahara. He warns that the issue is not an isolated matter but "a moral stress test for Europe — and Europe’s response will reveal the kind of future it envisions for itself." Read more Ireland: Complaint against Microsoft for unlawful data processing on behalf of Israeli Defence Forces in Gaza Complaint alleges that Microsoft’s processing of personal data facilitates war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, by Israeli military in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Read more The Human Guide to Detecting AI Imagery With the proliferation of AI slop across social media platforms – 25% of posts on TikTok, according to our findings – we have decided to share our expertise in detecting AI-generated content with other experts, fact checkers, journalists, researchers, and even regular users who may want to learn how to better decipher the content they see across social media. Read more Trieste: 'We are not just providing humanitarian aid, we have a political project, which is to stand up to institutional illegality' In the north-eastern Italian city of Trieste, a network of organizations have joined together to create a day center for migrants arriving along the Balkan route. But their center does much more than that, explains the director of one of the charities responsible for running the center, Gianfranco Schiavone. Read more secrecy and transparency Ombudsman finds maladministration in how Commission prepared urgent legislative proposals European Ombudswoman Teresa Anjinho has found a number of procedural shortcomings in how the European Commission prepared several legislative proposals that it considered urgent. Taken together the shortcomings amounted to maladministration. Read more surveillance and snooping Moving Past 'Chat Control' to Solutions that Truly Protect Kids and Privacy The CSA Regulation, the EU’s proposed law laying down rules to prevent and combat child sexual abuse, has been one of the most sharply-contested legal proposals of recent years. Aiming to curb the serious issue of the spread of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online, in 2022, the EU executive proposed a bill to scan digital communications and storage, mainly using artificial intelligence (AI) tools to find and report CSAM. In autumn 2025, public awareness of this controversial law reached an all-time high across EU countries, as an important vote signaled a possible crunch point. Read more Commission’s Digital Omnibus is a major rollback of EU digital protections The European Commission's "Digital Omnibus" proposal proposes changes to data protection, AI and other laws. This "risks dismantling the rules-based system that was hard-won over decades, endangering the very foundation of human rights and tech policy in the EU," warns European Digital Rights. Read more UK: Children on facial recognition watchlists shows need for safeguards Liberty has called on the Government to halt the rollout of facial recognition and introduce safeguards after revelations that children have been included on police watchlists. Read more UK digital ID plan gets a price tag at last – £1.8B The UK government has finally put a £1.8 billion price tag on its digital ID plans – days after the minister responsible refused to name a figure. Read more USA: Airlines Reporting Corp says it’s ending sales of ticket data to police The TIP scandal should be the beginning, not the end, of investigation, exposure, and enforcement action against airlines that have been disregarding passengers’ expectations of privacy, willingly and often secretly  collaborating with law enforcement agencies, and failing to protect them against stalkers and other everyday threats to their privacy and security. Read more French Muslim group demands investigation into census allegedly shared with Israel A French Muslim organisation has denounced a survey that may have been requested by a powerful pro-Israel lobby group, fuelled by data from French intelligence and security authorities, and then passed on to Israel. Read more UK: How Palantir infiltrated the state At a moment of national emergency, the government handed our data to Peter Thiel’s controversial company. Read more war and peace US lawmakers want war powers vote after Trump pledges Venezuela attack 'soon' A group of Democratic and Republican U.S. senators filed a resolution on Wednesday that would block U.S. military action against Venezuela without congressional approval, after President Donald Trump said a land campaign would begin shortly. Read more How Europe’s migration policy and arms empowered Sudan’s warlords European funding aimed at curbing migration inadvertently strengthened Sudanese paramilitaries, while weak export oversight allowed the flow of weapons. Read more ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ Statewatch 88 Fleet St, EC4Y 1DH, London