Venezuela could become test case for Chinese AI surveillance, report warns

Venezuelan officials have also publicly expressed an intention to use Chinese AI for security and surveillance.

ASPI researchers Fergus Ryan, Bethany Allen, and Nathan Attrill warn the deal could mark a serious escalation in Venezuela’s use of Chinese technology. Caracas has spent two decades deploying Chinese-made cameras, networks, and identity systems, creating what the researchers describe as an established surveillance infrastructure onto which AI could easily be layered.

“If Caracas continues to implement its plan to use Chinese AI for surveillance – and it has given no signal that it won’t – Venezuela will become one of the first countries outside China to import China’s new generation of LLM-based AI systems for surveillance and control, and the most advanced adopter in the Western Hemisphere,” the researchers said in the report.

The MOU was negotiated by Delcy Rodríguez, who was then Venezuela’s vice president and is now the US-appointed acting president. Rodríguez previously oversaw the country’s domestic intelligence agency, SEBIN, as well as the expansion of its commune system, which the report identifies as an important component of Venezuela’s political surveillance infrastructure.

ASPI said there is currently no public evidence that Chinese AI systems are operating within Venezuela’s surveillance apparatus. However, it warned that integrating iFlytek technology with the infrastructure already deployed by Caracas could transform a fragmented monitoring system into a more integrated mechanism of political control.

Potential applications include automated censorship and the integration of government databases to create individual risk profiles.

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“That escalation is preventable now. It will be far harder to reverse once built,” the report says.

iFlytek has been on the US Entity List since 2019 and, according to ASPI, supplies large language model systems used in China’s censorship and judicial automation systems.

The researchers argue that the current US influence over Venezuela’s government provides an opportunity to prevent deeper integration of Chinese AI into the country’s digital infrastructure. Among its recommendations, ASPI calls on the US government to push Rodríguez to cancel the iFlytek agreement, dismantle elements of Venezuela’s existing surveillance regime, and publish details of its AI and surveillance agreements.

The report also calls for greater support for Venezuelan civil society, journalists, and digital rights groups, including access to AI tools that could help counter censorship and protect their activities from government surveillance.

It recommends targeted sanctions against officials responsible for digital repression, alongside stronger enforcement of procurement and import restrictions targeting companies supplying surveillance technology to Venezuela.

“These findings serve as a call to action at a key turning point in Venezuela’s trajectory. It’s not too late to prevent the further entrenchment of technology-enabled surveillance there,” the report says.

You can read the full report here.