As repression becomes increasingly digital, states are expanding their ability to monitor, intimidate and silence journalists, activists and diaspora communities across jurisdictions.
The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) has dramatically escalated the sophistication, scale and severity of these practices. As technological development accelerates, AI systems are increasingly weaponised within digital transnational repression, intensifying existing repression strategies.
Technologies such as facial recognition, AI analysis of video surveillance and CCTV networks, predictive policing, deepfakes, automated content moderation, and coordinated AI-generated disinformation campaigns allow governments to monitor, profile, and target individuals with greater speed, scale and precision.
These tools enable repression to operate more discreetly and efficiently, making abuses harder to detect and accountability more difficult to enforce. As a result, emerging technologies are making cross-border repression more accessible, scalable, and appealing to governments seeking to consolidate control over critics and civil society actors abroad.
The study also analyses how regulatory and legal frameworks are struggling to keep pace with these developments. Current international governance structures, particularly those related to cybersecurity, intelligence cooperation, and counter-terrorism, often prioritise security coordination without sufficiently embedding human rights safeguards. Gaps in regulation, fragmented international standards, broad national security exemptions, and limited transparency requirements create environments where AI systems that enable transnational repression can proliferate with minimal oversight.
Strengthening accountability mechanisms, improving transparency obligations, and integrating human rights protections into international cooperation frameworks are essential to preventing misuse of emerging technologies.
The study examines:
- AI-enabled surveillance, including biometric surveillance, predictive policing, algorithmic risk assessments and blacklists, and smart cities;
- AI platforms, covering AI-generated disinformation and harassment campaigns, social media manipulation, and AI agents; and
- A brief policy analysis addressing key regulatory gaps and governance challenges.
By mapping how AI is reshaping transnational repression and identifying critical policy gaps, this study provides insight into one of today's most urgent challenges facing democratic governance, human rights protection and global digital security.