@svaroschi
Working on surveillance technology, migration, welfare. Collaborating with public interest newsrooms and human rights orgs. Bridging and connecting. Previously at Privacy International, Open Migration, TechPresident.
The report will be part of the advocacy at the International Migration Review Forum, the second global review of the implementation of the United Nations Global Compact for Migration, taking place in May 2026.
Here's my list of recommendations.
More on spotlightreportmigration.org
Spotlight on Migration, a report by the @womeninmigration.bsky.social is out!
spotlightreportmigration.org/wp-content/u...
I wrote about crucial issues on the use of surveillance tech against people on the move and to learn about migrant communities choosing to resist, and care for each other.
España restaura el acceso universal a la sanidad pública y gratuita, incluidas las personas migrantes en situación irregular
elpais.com/sociedad/202...
The Ireland-Northern Ireland border is often described as ‘soft’, but it does not operate equally. For many, it is a contemporary site of racialised border violence. Read the new post by @lynseyblack.bsky.social and @niamhkeady-tabbal.bsky.social 👇
blogs.law.ox.ac.uk/border-crimi...
More than anything, “the kids” are uninterested in the old parties… and who could blame them.
Il Mattinale Europeo è online
L’analisi: “Migranti: come l’UE sta creando il suo ICE”
Nelle brevi: Costa riprende le redini sull’Iran; Zelensky criticato dalla Commissione; la Cina vulnerabile; referendum in Svizzera e Islanda.
Con @cspillmann.bsky.social e @grimmse.bsky.social 👇
New from 404 Media: Proton Mail, the privacy-focused email service, gave authorities data that let the FBI unmask an anonymous 'Stop Cop City' protester. It was payment data linked to the anonymous email account. From that, FBI ID'd them, then tracked their movements www.404media.co/proton-mail-...
NEW: Italian prosecutors confirm that the phone of journalist Francesco Cancellato was hacked with Paragon spyware at the same time as the phones of two immigration activists.
The Italian government admitted the hack on the activists, but said it wasn't behind Cancellato's hack. So who was?
So we almost had a Democracia En Venta! :D
New from 404 Media: CBP tapped into the online advertising ecosystem to track peoples' movements, according to an internal DHS document. Shows for the first time DHS tracked phones via process for putting ads in ordinary apps—video games, fitness apps, many more www.404media.co/cbp-tapped-i...
Not on my bingo card: Hugh Grant denouncing EdTech companies monetizing children's data AND doing so while replying to a government consultation.
(via Twitter)
@jenpersson.com: a new campaigner in the making?
Next week! On March 4, @womeninmigration.bsky.social r is launching the Spotlight Report on Global Migration 2026 at 14 - 15:30 UTC.
(I will contribute with a short speech on the role of technology both to curb rights and to organize)
Register here: us06web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
"Europe’s anti-migrant politics has a long history and has built a border-industrial complex and political elite consensus [...]."
Technocracy is a feature, not a bug.
Read Alyna Smith's analysis (or autopsy?) on @tninstitute.bsky.social
www.tni.org/en/article/f...
The Overton window is moving to a different building entirely
The Italian bishops are right: these deaths are the result of political choices
MAGA's war on European civil society is escalating. Visa bans for NGO leaders and former EU officials, plus congressional demands for documents - it's all about undermining the Digital Services Act to protect Big Tech.
If Europe doesn't push back hard, "the law is dead."
www.ftm.eu/articles/tru...
Or maybe people feel that this is a "serious" space where you don't talk about this stuff
(twitter, on the other hand...)
Well, "he hopes".
The NCA approach to AI in policing seems to be based on thoughts and prayers - for people's rights.
A couple of milquetoast quotes on reducing bias is not cutting it if you then release unsafe tech in the wild to be tested on people.
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
NEW
Land and Expand - how Palantir captured the Ministry of Defence
What a close reading of public domain documents tells us about two concerning contract awards
Detailed post by me, following-up on my FT column
emptycity.substack.com/p/land-and-e...
"During one site visit in early 2025, OpenAI employee Keith Heyde joked with colleagues that he could assess the amount of clay in the soil just by tasting it. Then he crouched down, grabbed a pinch of earth and put it in his mouth. The moment became an inside joke, but it also showed just how determined the team was to understand the locations where they wanted to build data centers. (Heyde left OpenAI a few weeks ago.)"
Incredible reporting from @anissa.bsky.social in @theinformation.com about OpenAI's struggle to get more computing power as Stargate—its $500B data center buildout—has floundered.
theinformation.com/articles/ins...
It also includes this detail. We are in the dirt-eating phase of the AI hype cycle.
Is this what "the Left" should be engaging with, according to some thinkpiece?
Data centers for AI V. food+school for humans, same difference?
"Banning children’s access to social media, though, shifts the responsibility for safety from the platforms that create the environment to the children who navigate it."
Michael O'Flaherty, Commissioner for Human Rights at @coe.int
www.coe.int/en/web/commi...
🚨 Cabinet Office investigating Labour Together and Josh Simons over campaign to smear journalists
But...ministers overseeing inquiry have received £150,000+ from Labour think tank
Experts and MPs demand 'full independent investigation'
New on D4S: democracyforsale.substack.com/p/revealed-g... 🧵
The AI discourse has been particularly unhinged lately. Here are five things I think are behind it:
www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/five-takea...
There's an italian saying: "a pensare male si fa peccato, ma spesso si indovina," which roughly translates to: "to think badly would be to sin, but very often one gets it right."
Perfect example. It's amazing how quickly Ring admitted this. And it's great to have evidence.
The funny thing is that the lazy article doing the rounds simultaneously demands the Left to engage with AI (in the terms the author deem serious enough) but does not provide any proof that the Right understands AI. They're just willing to take at face value whatever tech companies are saying.
@abeba.bsky.social has a thread responding to some of the claims - there would be more to write but perhaps rebuttals on Substacks have limited use when people are reflecting, on the effects on their lives - and taking action.
(I know, who's gonna think about tech CEOs?)
bsky.app/profile/abeb...
Of course that doesn't mean that everyone doing that votes for a party *on the left* (whatever that means, though of course everything has to be looked with a US lens, right?)
Labor, land and water exploitation, uprooting communities are often associated with the left (and *are* voting issues.)
always find lazy articles that talk about a mythological Left without defining it. Sure, it is easier to write your "three straw-man arguments in a trenchcoat" longform.
If I wanted to be serious for a minute, I'd say: what about the analysis/advocacy/organizing around DATA CENTERS, for example?
I am halfway through and it feels like three straw man arguments in a trenchcoat