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Carnegie Endowment AI Global Surveillance Index
webCredibility Rating
4/5
High(4)High quality. Established institution or organization with editorial oversight and accountability.
Rating inherited from publication venue: Carnegie Endowment
Relevant to AI safety governance discussions around dual-use technology, export controls, and the geopolitical dimensions of AI deployment; useful for understanding how AI capabilities translate into real-world political harms at a global scale.
Metadata
Importance: 62/100organizational reportdataset
Summary
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's AI Global Surveillance Index tracks how AI-powered surveillance technologies are being deployed by governments worldwide. It documents which countries are using these tools, which companies supply them, and how they correlate with authoritarianism and human rights conditions. The index provides empirical grounding for debates about AI's role in enabling state repression.
Key Points
- •At least 75 countries globally are actively using AI surveillance tech including smart city platforms, facial recognition, and predictive policing tools.
- •China is the leading supplier of AI surveillance technology, with Huawei, Hikvision, and ZTE among the most widely deployed vendors.
- •Surveillance technology is deployed across democracies and autocracies alike, though use cases and oversight vary significantly by regime type.
- •The index highlights the dual-use nature of AI systems—tools marketed for safety and efficiency are frequently repurposed for political repression.
- •Lack of regulatory frameworks and export controls allows authoritarian-enabling surveillance tech to proliferate with limited accountability.
Cited by 3 pages
| Page | Type | Quality |
|---|---|---|
| AI Surveillance and Regime Durability Model | Analysis | 64.0 |
| AI-Powered Investigation Risks | Risk | 40.0 |
| AI Mass Surveillance | Risk | 64.0 |
1 FactBase fact citing this source
| Entity | Property | Value | As Of |
|---|---|---|---|
| Carnegie Endowment for International Peace | publication | AI Global Surveillance (AIGS) Index covering 176 countries, created by Steven Feldstein | — |
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AI Global Surveillance Technology
Artificial intelligence (AI) technology is rapidly proliferating around the world. A growing number of states are deploying advanced AI surveillance tools to monitor, track, and surveil citizens to accomplish a range of policy objectives—some lawful, others that violate human rights, and many of which fall into a murky middle ground.
In order to appropriately address the effects of this technology, it is important to first understand where these tools are being deployed and how they are being used.
Countries using AI surveillance technology Smart City Facial Recognition Smart Policing U.S. Tech Chinese Tech Reset Select Country Algeria Argentina Armenia Australia Bahrain Bangladesh Bolivia Botswana Brazil Burma Canada Chile China Colombia Czechia Denmark Ecuador Egypt France Georgia Germany Ghana Hong Kong India Indonesia Iran Iraq Israel Italy Ivory Coast Japan Kazakhstan Kenya Kyrgyzstan Laos Lebanon Malaysia Malta Mauritius Mexico Mongolia Morocco Namibia Netherlands New Zealand Nigeria Oman Pakistan Panama Philippines Qatar Romania Russia Rwanda Saudi Arabia Serbia Singapore South Africa South Korea Spain Switzerland Taiwan Tajikistan Thailand Turkey Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States of America Uruguay Uzbekistan Venezuela Zambia Zimbabwe To provide greater clarity, Carnegie presents an AI Global Surveillance (AIGS) Index—representing one of the first research efforts of its kind. The index compiles empirical data on AI surveillance use for 176 countries around the world. It does not distinguish between legitimate and unlawful uses of AI surveillance. Rather, the purpose of the research is to show how new surveillance capabilities are transforming the ability of governments to monitor and track individuals or systems. It specifically asks:
Which countries are adopting AI surveillance technology?
What specific types of AI surveillance are governments deploying?
Which countries and companies are supplying this technology?
Learn more about our findings and how AI surveillance technology is spreading rapidly around the globe.
Learn More Notes
Aggregate Regime Score: Comprised of evenly weighted average of country scores from Freedom in the World 2019, https://freedomhouse.org/report/countries-world-freedom-2019 ; the EIU Democracy Index 2018, https://www.eiu.com/topic/democracy-index ; and the V-Dem Dataset version 9, Electoral Democracy Index, https://www.v-dem.net/en/data/data-version-9/ .
Regime Type: The AIGS Index uses a four-part regime category typology established by V-Dem and Regimes of the World: closed autocracies, electoral autocracies, electoral democracies, and liberal democracies. Countries with an average score less than 2.5 are labeled closed autocracies. Countries with an average score between 4.9 and 2.5 are labeled electoral autocracies. Countries with an average score between 7.9 and 5.0 are labeled electoral democracies. Countries with an avera
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