The Buenos Aires Ministry of Justice and Security is said to have irregularly accessed the biometric data of seven million people, including President Alberto Fernández, according to an investigation published by Argentine media, according to Prensa Latina.
According to an investigation led by Judge Roberto Andrés Gallardo, the said Autonomous City of Buenos Aires unit used the Fugitive Facial Recognition System (SNRP) installed in 2019 to obtain data and monitor politicians, journalists, MPs, lawyers and members of organizations defending human rights .
According to the Página 12 newspaper quoted by PL, these citizens include Deputy President Cristina Fernández and the Presidents of the Abuelas and Madres de Plaza de Mayo, Estela de Carlotto and Hebe de Bonafini clubs respectively.
This came after Argentina’s Computer Law Observatory appealed against the SNRP, conducted during the tenure of former President Mauricio Macri (2015-2019), on the grounds of perfecting the detection of people wanted by city authorities .
To this end, the capital’s ministry signed a contract with the National Register of Persons and the State Justice for access to the database of the National Consultation on Rebellions and Arrests, which contains information on 50,000 citizens, the Latin American News Agency reports.
However, according to Gallardo’s investigations, between April 2019 and March 2022, that facility conducted a total of 9,900,282 investigations, a number significantly higher than the number handled by the courts.
The judge ordered the suspension of the SNRP and the search of the capital’s ministry, whose authorities claimed that the information obtained was used not only to prosecute the citizens wanted by the judiciary, but also for regular procedures, PL specified.