Infra-Legalities: Global Security Infrastructures, Artificial Intelligence and International Law

Terrorist risks and threats are increasingly identified and countered through new forms of data analytics made possible by rapid advances in machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI). Private actors, including social media platforms, airlines and financial institutions, now actively collaborate with states and international organisations (IOs) to implement ambitious data-led security projects to support global counterterrorism efforts. The UN Security Council (UNSC) has called on all states to intensify the exchange of information about suspected terrorists by building watchlists and sharing biometric data, using ML to predictively identify 'future terrorists' in advance. Social media platforms are using AI to detect extremist content online and regulate global data flows on an unprecedented scale. Passenger data from the aviation industry is analysed to identify suspicious 'patterns of behaviour' and control the movements of risky travellers. Financial data is mined by banks to spot suspicious transactions and terrorist 'associations'.

These changes are all putting new and far-reaching global information infrastructure projects into motion. Yet the implications of these shifts for how international law is practiced, global security threats known and powerful actors held accountable remain uncertain. The data infrastructures underlying global governance have been largely neglected in legal scholarship. And whilst potential problems that AI poses (discrimination and privacy violations) are becoming clearer, solutions remain elusive - especially in the security domain, where secrecy is key and the inner workings of algorithms are 'black-boxed' even more than usual. Regulatory theorists argue that we urgently need to 'expand our frame of rights discourse to encompass our socio-technical architecture' to respond to the accountability challenges of AI (Yeung 2019). Data infrastructures, in other words, might provide the basis for reimagining how information and rights could be reconnected in our digital present.

This project rethinks global security law from the 'infrastructure space' it is creating, focusing on (i) countering terrorism online and (ii) controlling the movements of 'risky' individuals. My hypothesis is that the most far-reaching changes to global security governance are not being written in the language of international law, or created through the formal powers of states and IOs, but built through new socio-technical infrastructures and the expertise they are enabling. Data infrastructures are critical for understanding how rights might be extended through AI. I develop the concept of 'infra-legalities' (or, the regulatory effects of data infrastructures) to analyse these shifts and develop a new approach for studying international law and regulation in the age of algorithmic global governance. Infrastructure is usually disregarded as an invisible substrate on which powerful actors act. It is rarely seen as something through which knowledge and governance can be created and shaped. Drawing from Science and Technology Studies, computer science and security studies, this project performs what Bowker and Star (1999) call an 'infrastructural inversion' by mapping the seemingly mundane governance work of data infrastructures in this domain. By 'following the data' - and tracing the socio-technical relations, norms, knowledge practices and power asymmetries that security infrastructures are enacting - a different method of studying global governance can emerge.

States, IOs and tech platforms are all calling for the ethical development of AI. Different regulatory approaches are proposed with no consensus on how to mitigate the adverse effects of AI whilst embracing its vast potentialities. Studying the infra-legalities of global security law opens space for addressing these challenges and shaping current policy debates on security, trust and accountability in the age of AI and automation.

This project will benefit a range of non-academic communities within and beyond the UK. Key stakeholders are listed below. See Pathways to Impact for how impacts will be realised. Key members of these communities have already agreed to participate in the project. Stakeholders will be invited to the conference in September 2022 and launch event in November 2024. The Fellow will also draw on their own strong networks and those of the Partners, Collaborators, Co-I and Advisory Group to widely publicise this project:

1. Policy practitioners, UK and Global

The project explores issues of critical policy significance - such as how rights can be protected through data infrastructures and AI, how platforms should be regulated, and how public and private actors can share data in ethical ways. Research will be disseminated to policy makers through project partners, participation at policy and project events and short publications aimed at practitioner audiences. Simon Watkin MBE (Home Office) leads UK efforts to protect rights in processing PNR data with AI and has partnered with this project because it will inform UK and global policy debates in this area. The UN Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (also partners) work with Interpol on AI and global security and will help disseminate the research to international policy audiences through workshops and events (eg, Interpol World conferences). The Fellow is part of the UN Counterterrorism Executive Directorate's Global Research Network (GRN) which fosters dialogue between academics and UN policymakers. The GRN coordinator has confirmed via email that CTED will help disseminate the project findings and that they are interested in its outcomes. Such support ensures the benefits of this project will reach key UK and global policy communities.

2. Internet platforms and other private actors

The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) is the key industry body engaged in CVE online. GIFCT fund a Global Research Network on Terrorism and Technology (GRNTT), coordinated by RUSI, who are project partners in this fellowship. Research findings will be presented at GRNTT events as short policy papers (for example, on the regulation of platforms in CVE online) and spread via the RUSI newsletter, to maximise circulation amongst platforms and policy makers. The Fellow also has good networks with counterterrorism policy leads in Google, Facebook, Twitter and Tech Against Terrorism (supported by UNCTED), and these networks will also be leveraged to maximise impact, ensure access to research participants and that findings are well disseminated.

3. Civil Society Organisations (CSOs)

The project will also benefit rights advocacy organisations and CSOs working on AI-led security practices. They will be reached through the project website, blog posts in high-profile sites (such as Just Security) and key project events in 2022 and 2024. ACLU, Fair Trials International (FTI) and the Ada Lovelace Institute engage in policy work with those affected by AI and security databases and all are project partners. Other key CSOs (eg, Open Society Institute, AI Now) will be reached through the website, public events and talks.

4. Individuals and groups affected by global security infrastructures

By investigating how security governance is transforming through data infrastructures and AI, the project will open new ways of protecting rights and accountability. This will benefit individuals who are being governed by global security infrastructures without effective redress (those on lists, passengers denied boarding, people who have online content removed). Such individuals will be reached through the website, via project partners (ACLU and FTI) and specialist legal consultants (HNK Legal) engaged to help bring targeted people into the project and file data access requests on their behalf to be used as an empirical resource (see Case for Support, Research Methods).