In this episode we will be heading to Greece - first to the Greek island of Samos, and then to the mainland, to talk about how surveillance is used to control movement in detention and reception facilities for people on the move. 

At BVMN we use the term people on the move for all those crossing European borders in search of safety or a better life. The term includes refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants, and it also rejects all politicized connotations.

We will begin on the island of Samos, a small island in the Aegean Sea close to Türkiye and from there we will start following the story of a young man called Rami. Rami is a fictional character, but his story is pieced together from real testimonies and extensive research that BVMN carried out on Samos. 

Rami’s story represents the all-too-common experience of many people on the move who enter the European Union through Samos.

Upon arrival to Samos, if not pushed back, people are transferred to the Samos Closed Control Access Centre - or Samos CCAC. This is an EU-funded facility that opened in September 2021. 

Being located nearly seven kilometers from the nearest town, the Samos CCAC is isolated and heavily fortified, with multiple layers of barbed-wire fencing, constant presence, of police and border agents, and private security from G4S, a British firm  

Upon arrival at the facility, our fictional Rami is taken into a room. There, the authorities take his fingerprints and later his full palm print, without giving an explanation or requesting for consent for carrying out this procedure. Rami waits for hours before it is his turn. Our research shows that this is the case for most people brought to the Samos CCAC. In 75% of cases we documented, people did not receive any information on this procedure.

“No, no one explains it, they only take fingerprints and take us from one place to another and we do it without knowing why they are doing it. There is no one to explain what is happening”. 

“When they want to take fingerprints, the police officers, they just bring the people in, they don't talk”.

Yet, this kind of collection of personal and so called “biometric” data is unlawful. According to EU data protection standards, whenever personal data is taken from you, you have to be informed about the reasons your data is taken, what will happen to it and the right to object.

The personal data and fingerprints collected from people on the move feed, first, into EURODAC, the shared EU database that stores and shares fingerprints of asylum seekers. Also, data feed into Hyperion, an EU-funded system, which is used to control who enters and exits the Samos CCAC. 

To move in and out of the Samos CCAC, people on the move must scan their fingerprints and their biometric ID card and this is quite an invasive, slow and frustrating process. 

People often wait more than an hour to get in or out of the center sometimes under harsh weather conditions. 

Even those who have trouble walking and chronic health issues have to queue for entry and exit. People miss important appointments, or get discouraged trying to leave in the first place. 

As the Samos CCAC is located in an isolated area, people are dependent on taking the bus, which only runs a couple of times per day. If they are then waiting long in the queue, people might miss the bus, which makes it even harder to reach the town. This creates additional obstacles to accessing basic services and necessities such as legal aid or health care.  Hyperion, which the EU presents as a tool for “efficient management”, adds another layer of control. 

Being such a restricted facility, conditions inside the Samos CCAC are dire. 

Our fictional character spends his first six days in an isolated, extra area from the rest of the Samos CCAC in a crowded container with twenty other people. In this area there is neither a bed, nor a mattress, just cardboard on the floor. Rami often only gets one meal a day, and the food is often spoiled or still frozen. The sanitation facilities are also in horrible conditions, to the extent that people are sometimes even reluctant to take a shower. 

After leaving the isolation period, things for Rami don’t get much better. Due to regular overcrowding and lack of maintenance, all spaces in the Samos CCAC are in a very bad state. 

Water is only available twice a day and often the cold makes it very difficult for him to take a shower, especially in winter. Spending some time in the Samos CCAC, our fictional character also notices CCTV cameras around the facility. His friends also tell him that during a protest they heard the hum of drones overhead. These are not just any cameras or drones, they are part of Centaur, another EU-funded surveillance system . Centaur uses an algorithm-based motion analysis software and transmits both drone and CCTV footage from the Samos CCAC to a control center at Greece’s Ministry of Migration and Asylum in Athens. We know that at least three Greek and two Israeli companies are involved in the system: ESA Security, Space Hellas, Adaptit, ViiSights 57 and Octopus. 

Centaur also reserves a treatment which is not that dissimilar from the one given by Hyperion. Like most people, Rami was not informed that the Samos CCAC is surveilled. 

Only one person mentioned being given a paper, explaining that cameras are monitoring them, but it was in Greek and English, and these are languages that many people held in the Samos CCAC can’t understand. 

“They’re there to keep an eye on us. It makes you feel uncomfortable, like you’re being watched all the time”.

“Like I said, it’s a feeling of frustration. You understand that you’re in prison. You’re told you’re free, but you’re not. It’s a façade of freedom”. 

Rami’s experience with surveillance technology on Samos isn’t just invasive—it’s a clear violation of privacy and data protection rights. 

Even workers in the Samos CCAC mentioned a feeling of frustration that funding was used for surveillance instead of securing basic living standards, like available running water, in the facility.

The violation of privacy and data protection rights has also been challenged in the past. In April 2024, Greece’s Hellenic Data Protection Authority issued a ruling against the Hellenic Ministry of Migration and Asylum. They fined the Ministry with €175,000 for substantive breaches of GDPR - the EU`s data protection law -  for their use of the Hyperions and Centaur systems in reception facilities for asylum seekers in Greece, like the Samos CCAC. That was a historic ruling because it was the largest penalty ever imposed on a Greek public body. 

At the same time, the Hellenic Data Protection Authority set July 2024 as a deadline for the Ministry to fix the problems and comply with the GDPR. Yet, one year after the deadline, the Ministry of Migration didn’t comply with the order and the violations are still ongoing. The Ministry continues to provide only limited and insufficient information about the use of the Centaur and Hyperion surveillance system to those being held inside the Samos CCAC.

What’s becoming clearer and clearer is that surveillance in the Samos CCAC isn’t just about cameras or biometric data, it's about control and marginalization of already marginalised groups. Essentially, these tools further strip people of their dignity while pretending to uphold order.

A former detainee described it this way:

“[t]he water there was not clean and it was not drinkable and there were cockroaches all over the place. The bed was broken and it’s not clean, the mattress, everything is dirty, some were sleeping on the ground. Because of sleeping on the ground, I got an allergic reaction”. 

Access to proper healthcare is virtually nonexistent. Requests to see a doctor are ignored, and detainees are often handed painkillers instead. In some tragic cases, this neglect proves fatal. 

One of the respondents recalls after an incident:

“He died because of lack of medicine, lack of healthcare. [...] Before he died everyone was fighting for him, asking the police to get him to a hospital, to get him a doctor, but the police never even gave an answer, never cared about it. They didn’t do anything until the person died”.

Violence and intimidation are routine in Amygdaleza. One interviewee revealed that the police use isolation as punishment—locking people in a dark room without access to a toilet. Once a man who tried to set his cell on fire in desperation was allegedly held in isolation for three months. Riot police interventions and use of tear gas have also been reported.

Someone told us:

“[t]he reason was to show us that we cannot cause any problems here and we have to be quiet. [...] If anybody said something, the police would beat them with batons and kick them”.

After 17 days in Amygdaleza, our fictional character is told to gather his belongings. He is loaded into a dark blue police van and transferred to yet another detention facility called Paranesti, where we will leave him stuck in a limbo with no way out.

Located in Drama, northern Greece, the Paranesti PRO.KE.KA has become the final stop for many people previously detained in Amygdaleza. Upon arrival, police officers are used to smashing the detainees’ phone cameras and conducting a full body search.