cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/12317628

Archived English version

Archived Spanish version

Venezuela may be one step away from becoming one of the first countries outside the People’s Republic of China to adopt the new generation of Chinese artificial intelligence systems for mass surveillance and political control, according to a report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).

The report reveals that in July 2025, the Venezuelan government signed a memorandum of understanding with iFlytek, a Chinese company that has been on the U.S. trade sanctions list since 2019 for its role in the repression of Muslim minorities in Xinjiang. The agreement to jointly develop Artificial intelligence in Venezuela was negotiated by Delcy Rodríguez, then vice president and now Venezuela’s interim president.

…

The report, titled “Warning Signals: Venezuela and the Risk of Chinese AI-Enabled Digital Authoritarianism” (pdf), documents that Venezuela doesn’t need to build a surveillance system from scratch — it already has one, built largely on Chinese technology through importing cameras, networks, identity systems and command centres from Chinese firms in the past two decades.

While the resulting architecture is fragmented, unevenly deployed and technically constrained, ASPI’s researchers identified six interconnected technological layers in the imported surveillance system: telecommunications, digital identity, central databases, video surveillance, internet control, and now, analytics and artificial intelligence. All of them were built or enhanced with support from companies such as Huawei, ZTE, CEIEC, Hikvision, and Dahua.

…

At the core of this system’s identity layer is the Carnet de la Patria (Homeland Card), a digital ID linked to social benefits. The report states it had 21.8 million registered users as of January 2023—roughly three-quarters of Venezuela’s population—and served as many as 14.2 million people each month. A layer of central databases could cross-reference identity information, biometric data, and social welfare data.

The report also describes a network of video surveillance and command centres (such as the VEN911 and SIMA systems) capable of monitoring public spaces and coordinating responses in real time, and a telecommunications infrastructure that, by channelling a large portion of the country’s data traffic, functions as an additional checkpoint.

While the above technologies were imported through separate contracts, they reinforce one another and form a partially connected surveillance system, enabling government agencies to identify, monitor, and take action regarding citizens’ behaviour.

…

According to the report, iFlytek’s AI technology will further integrate the pre-existing layers of surveillance infrastructure into a more comprehensive system, making it faster, more scalable, and harder to evade.

Facial recognition, voice identification, and automated database cross-referencing tools could be used to identify, locate, and profile individuals without any visible human action, such as attending a protest.

…

If that capability were combined with the network of cameras and the identity records in the Carnet de la Patria, the risk is that the government would no longer need to rely on someone’s visible participation in a protest to identify them, and could instead preemptively flag individuals based on patterns of association, movement, or activity on social media even before any specific incident occurs.

…

Added to all this is a pattern of opacity. As has been the case for years with technology agreements between Venezuela and the People’s Republic of China, the details of the memorandum with iFlytek have not been made public in their entirety; this makes it difficult to ascertain the actual scope of the agreement, which is why the report recommends demanding the full publication of these agreements.

…

The agreement with iFlytek was signed months before Maduro’s capture by U.S. forces in January 2026. Delcy Rodríguez, who negotiated it directly at the time, now serves as the U.S.-backed interim president. However, the report notes that during her tenure, the Venezuelan surveillance apparatus has not been dismantled. This is the same conclusion reached by the UN International Fact-Finding Mission, which documented that the surveillance infrastructure remained in place following the change in government.

The authors argue that, despite this, there is a window of opportunity. The interim government’s current dependence on the U.S. could be used to demand the cancellation of the memorandum with iFlytek before this technological escalation is implemented.

…