High-risk Colombians say GPS devices only increase the dangers

The bulletproof vehicles that the Colombian government assigns to hundreds of high risk people they make them safer. But when one investigative reporter found out they all had GPS trackers, she only felt more vulnerable and outraged.

No one had informed Claudia Julieta Duque, or apparently any of the more than 3,700 journalists, human rights activists, and labor and indigenous leaders who use the vehicles, that the devices constantly monitored their whereabouts. In Duque’s case, it happened every 30 seconds. The system could also remotely shut off the SUV’s engine.

Colombia is among the most dangerous countries in the world for human rights defenders, with more than 500 killed since 2016. It is also a country where right-wing extremists have a history of infiltrating national security agencies. For Duque, the GPS revelation was chilling: The movements of people already at risk of political assassination were being tracked with technology that bad actors could weaponize against them.

“It’s super invasive,” said Duque, who has been a persistent target of rogue security agents. “And the state doesn’t seem to care.”

The responsible government agency said the trackers were installed to help prevent robberies, track bodyguards who often drive the vehicles and help respond to dangerous situations.

For a decade, Colombia had been installing trackers in the armored vehicles of people at risk and important personalities, including presidents, government ministers and senators. The agency director made that disclosure after Duque learned last year through a public records request that the system was recording the location of his truck an average of five times an hour.

The director dismissed privacy concerns, calling the practice “essential” to ensure security.

Considering the tracer to be a danger to her and her sources, Duke pressed for details on its exact characteristics. But the National Protection Unit, known as UNP in Spanish, offered little. She then demanded that the agency remove the device. She refused. So in February, Duque returned the vehicle, left the country and filed a legal challenge.

Now, back in Bogotá, he expects satisfaction when Gustavo Petro, the first left-wing president of ColombiaHe takes office on August 7.

Petro’s national security transition team did not respond to questions from The Associated Press on the matter.

Whatever action the new administration takes will reflect on its declared commitment to human rights and its ability to reform a national security establishment long run by bitter political enemies.

The UNP is a pillar of that establishment. It employs, mostly as bodyguards, dozens of former agents from the disgraced internal security agency DAS, which was dissolved in 2011 after the government of former President Álvaro Uribe abused it to spy on Supreme Court judges, journalists and opponents. politicians.

Among them, Petro and Duque himself stood out.

She was watched, threatened and intimidated by DAS agents after uncovering evidence that the 1999 murder of beloved humorist and peace activist Jaime Garzón was a state crime. Duque’s reporting ultimately helped convict a former DAS deputy director of the murder, and three other former DAS officials were convicted of psychological torture for threatening the lives of Duque and her daughter.

Trials against another eight are pending. Regardless, her threats forced her into temporary exile nearly a dozen times.

Questions about the GPS devices added to growing concerns about an agency once ranked among the most effective in Latin America in protecting human rights. Adam Isacson, an analyst with the Washington Office on Latin America, said the UNP became less responsive, more politicized and more criminalized under the outgoing Conservative government.

“Given that social leaders were killed almost every other day for the last four years, this was the worst time for the unit to be disorganized,” he said. Right-wing death squad activity soared after a historic 2016 peace pact with leftist rebels.

Duque says he was told about the GPS trackers in early 2020 when he learned of a planned attempt on his life, but when he inquired about them, the government blocked them for a year.

When he finally obtained the documents with the help of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, they showed that his location was recorded 25,183 times over 209 days, from February to August of last year alone. A software manual described a panoply of other control options, including remotely operated cameras and door locks managed through the vehicles’ computers.

Duque asked if any of those features were active on government-leased vehicles, but said he got no response. The general manager of the company that provides the GPS software told the AP that it only tracks location and speed and allows the engine to be turned off.

A 2021 contract with the car rental company obtained by Duque stipulates that a UNP official must approve any engine outage and that the data collected be kept for a minimum of two years. Nothing in the contract supports the UNP’s claim that the system tracks bodyguards and allows quick reactions in dangerous situations.

UNP officials refused to answer questions from the AP. There is no evidence that GPS tracking has caused any harm to any of the people under protection.

Agency officials took offense last year when Duque questioned their intentions.

“We do not persecute or follow anyone illegally,” director Alfonso Campo tweeted in October. “The information collected by the GPS is private” and is only delivered to a judge or judicial authority when required by a case or for security reasons. AP asked the Attorney General’s Office if it had made any requests, but did not respond.

Privacy experts view the Colombian government’s monitoring as illegal and disproportionate and say it presents an unnecessary hacking risk.

According to the country’s privacy law of 2012, affected individuals must give their consent for such data to be retained. But they were never asked, said Emmanuel Vargas, a privacy law expert who helps Duque.

There is no indication that GPS has helped protect indigenous leader Miller Correa, who was kidnapped and killed in mid-March while driving alone on a rural highway. The tracker was later used to recover his government-issued car, which was not armored.

A June 2021 letter from the government to the Inter-American Commission said that the UNP took “all necessary measures” to ensure that data on protected persons “was not accessible to (agency) officials.” But in a December letter to Duque, the agency indicated that it does not directly manage data protection efforts. A contractor is responsible.

After Duque published his findings, several other high-risk Colombians publicly expressed distrust of the security details provided by the government.

One was investigative journalist Julián Martínez, whose book on the infiltration of corrupt narco-paramilitaries into the DAS won a national journalism award in 2017.

Bodyguards assigned by the Martínez government not only spied on him after he published articles about alleged drug-related corruption involving the outgoing government. He accuses them of collecting material for a smear campaign organized by his boss, an external contractor and former DAS official.

In February, Martínez’s armored car was attacked in Bogotá by armed men who were reportedly repelled by his bodyguards. He was close at the time and no one was hurt. Martinez does not believe it was an attempted robbery, as investigators have said they suspect.

“The protection scheme has become a control scheme,” he said from Argentina, where he fled last month after denouncing an alleged plot to strip him of his protection, alleging that he was abusing it.

Alberto Yepes, a prominent human rights activist who helps victims of extrajudicial executions by the Colombian army, is certain that the UNP is being used to spy on him. He suspects cell phone circuits he discovered in September in his government-issued vehicle could be used to eavesdrop on conversations.

Yepes is not sure Petro can succeed in overhauling the protection unit due to the heavy involvement of contractors with military backgrounds.

“It will be difficult for the new government to change,” he said. “They will have to negotiate.”

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