Maritime surveillance risks infringing on decent work while intending to protect against abuses

This piece draws attention to emerging concerns, especially across industrial fisheries, with regard to the nexus of human rights abuses, labor exploitation, and surveillance technology. Specifically, the emerging topic of electronic monitoring is discussed, drawing upon existing academic and grey literatures. The paper makes its point of departure in the observation that in recent years, policy dialogues, companies, and maritime actors are pushing for a move from, in effect, watching fish to watching people within global supply chains. In particular, vessel-based camera systems have been used to document catch data, but are increasingly aimed at documenting human behavior, especially for surveillance of human rights abuses, sometimes with the assistance of artificial intelligence. As electronic monitoring is one of the latest trends in attempts to make fisheries production processes more transparent, combat severe labor exploitation, and limit human rights abuses, this paper describes the contours of the contemporary evidence on this issue. The paper offers that conceptualizing electronic monitoring as a form of surveillance could usefully re-orient marine policy and fisheries scholarship to worker concerns along dimensions such as trust, democracy, and the protection of civil liberties against an overly techno-managerial governance of the blue economy. Such a perspective could shift the debate towards prioritizing the empowerment of workers and move toward greater equity in maritime spaces.