The present report illuminates the ways in which counter-terrorism and security are frequently used to provide political and legal justifications for the adoption of high-risk and highly intrusive technologies on the basis of exceptional threats and with the promise of strictly limited application. The report demonstrates that such rationales and limitations rarely hold, and that the claim of exceptional use to respond to security crises is a chimera, when the reality is broad and wholesale use which lacks adequate human rights or rule of law restraints. Such technologies, including biometric, surveillance and drone technology, have serious negative impacts on the enjoyment of human rights across the globe. The Special Rapporteur highlights the human rights risks inherent in the development, deployment and transfer of such technologies internationally. She is also deeply concerned about the discriminatory elements built into the development and deployment of such technologies. Negative consequences include direct violations of non-derogable rights, the integrity of which is being undermined by
new technologies lacking any meaningful legal oversight, and impunity for both State and non-State actors whose use and transfer of such technologies involves systemic rights-violative practice.