Automated artificial intelligence (AI)-powered surveillance tools are being deployed to track migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in the US, raising serious human rights concerns, according to a report by Amnesty International.

Amnesty’s analysis of documents obtained from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) highlights how two systems in particular – Babel X, provided by Babel Street, and Palantir’s Immigration OS – have automated monitoring and mass surveillance capabilities that are being used to underpin the government’s aggressive immigration enforcement operations.

The organisation claims the tools feed into the State Department’s AI-driven “Catch and Revoke” initiative, which combines social media monitoring, visa status tracking and automated threat assessments of foreign individuals on visas. The practice has already been criticised for violating the First Amendment rights of people living in the US.