EU funded security research has distributed €1.15B and funded 714 projects but scrutiny and criticism appears to be sidelined in the quest for new tech
EU science funding is being spent on developing new tools for policing and security. But who decides how far we need to submit to artificial intelligence?
Context & Ripple Effects
This 2020 Guardian investigation is the opening data point in an arc of EU security-funding coverage: €1.15B distributed across 714 research projects for policing and border tools, with ethical scrutiny reportedly sidelined in favor of delivery. The paper's follow-up on EU-funded drones and sensor systems used to track refugees at borders showed where that pipeline landed.
The pattern has since compounded rather than corrected: Brussels launched [[a:841521|€220M 'crash test' facilities letting companies trial AI and robotics in real-life settings]], and analysis found the EU still funds 11 Huawei projects despite member-state telecom bans — evidence that the funding-first posture extends beyond security research into industrial policy.
First-order effects
- The named beneficiaries are the research consortia and vendors behind the 714 projects, who can advance AI-driven policing and surveillance tools without a binding ethics or rights-assessment gate before deployment.
Second-order effects
- Border agencies gain a steady supply line of tracking technology — drones, sensors — already documented in the refugee-tracking spend, while academic institutions' independence comes under question as they take both EU and large-platform money.
Third-order effects
- The structural risk is a funder-and-regulator conflict inside Brussels itself: the same institutions distributing security R&D money now run collective risk assessments on AI and chips, meaning oversight capacity is being built after, not before, the tools exist.
The trend: EU security technology funding is scaling faster than the governance mechanisms meant to vet it, making post-hoc regulation the bloc's default posture.