Surveillance States: How AI Reshapes Borders, Refugee Lives & Human Rights

In this talk, investigative journalist Lydia Emmanouilidou will delve into how artificial intelligence and surveillance technologies are transforming border management and impacting the lives of refugees. Drawing on her reporting from refugee camps in Greece and borders in Europe and the US, Lydia will reveal how cutting-edge technologies—from facial recognition to phone extraction—are increasingly employed to "manage" vulnerable populations and the human rights implications of these practices.

Lydia Emmanouilidou is a freelance journalist and audio producer based between Greece and the US. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, NPR, BBC, Deutsche Welle, PBS, CBC, Monocle Radio, Al Jazeera, The New Humanitarian, The Guardian and other outlets.

Over the past decade, Lydia has worked as a reporter, producer, editor, and director for leading US public radio newsrooms—covering higher education, technology, migration, and various other topics.

Lydia got her start in journalism at NPR’s Investigative Unit, where she contributed reporting and research to a Peabody-award-winning series on mustard gas testing experiments conducted on American service members during World War II and an award-winning series on the debilitating injuries nurses endure on the job.

Before deciding to go freelance, she was a staff reporter for The World, a daily international news program and BBC co-production that airs on 300+ public radio stations across the US. She was the show’s technology reporter and later the program’s foreign correspondent in Athens.

Lydia’s work has been recognized with some of the most prestigious journalism awards in the US and Europe. She is among the recipients of the , the awarded by the European Parliament and a runner-up for the 2024 European Press Prize: Migration Category. She also received the 2021 National Edward R. Murrow Award for her reporting on refugees on Lesbos island in Greece. Other honors and awards include the 2016 NIHCM 9th Annual Television and Radio Journalism Award and the 2016 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award.

Lydia has guest-lectured Journalism and International Affairs courses at top US universities, including Boston University and Northeastern University. She also regularly speaks about her work at international conferences.

Special thanks to the at UW-Madison for co-sponsoring this event.

Host or Publisher IRIS NRC