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The Politics of Digital Borders

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Border Politics

Abstract

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) and large-scale digital databases play a crucial role in the European management of borders and mobility governance. Since the 1990 Schengen Agreement three large-scale IT systems and a number of information sharing mechanisms have emerged. This chapter scrutinizes the relationship between digital technology and border politics by following the idiom of co-production, which focuses on the interconnectedness between techno-political developments and the (re-)construction of social orders. It examines how digital systems are deployed and enacted in the processes of identification, data collection and categorization. The analysis is based on various documents issued by the main official authorities and actors, from official communications and regulation by the European Commission and Council to the information brochures and technical reports of the eu-Lisa agency. The chapter will first present the main developments of ICTs and digital systems in European border management, and then point to the ways in which digital technologies are deployed for the governance of cross-border mobility. In particular, it highlights the de-territorialization effects of digital border governance and the important role of the human body in identification and categorization processes. Finally, it argues that digital borders are co-produced by the interaction and interplay of human actors and technological systems at the various border sites.

This chapter is based on research and insights for my dissertation that completed a master of science degree in political sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science (2015). I would like to thank my supervisor Michael McQuarrie.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Kuster and Tsianos’ research report (2012: 16) on Eurodac serves as a striking example. For example, one of their interviewees, a German IT specialist, stated he could neither explain nor understand the inordinate use of Eurodac category 2, ‘illegal border crossers’, by the Greek authorities, which would amount to a much higher figure of entries than using category 3, ‘illegal residents’.

  2. 2.

    See for example Hayes and Vermeulen (2012: 31).

  3. 3.

    ‘Remote control’ is defined as the requirement of ‘obtaining permission to enter before embarking on the journey’ (Zolberg 2006: 223).

  4. 4.

    Certainly, Andrew Barry’s term ‘technological zone’ can help to grasp the (non-territorial) character of these arrangements for governance. It is defined as a set of diverse regulations, socio-technical arrangements and processes, technical infrastructures that render objects or flows governable (Barry 2001: 37ff.).

  5. 5.

    See the Stockholm Programme: ‘[A]ccess to the Union’s territory has to be made more effective and efficient. At the same time, the Union and its Member States have to guarantee security for their citizens’ (CEU 2010: C115/5).

  6. 6.

    Consequently, an ‘Entry-Exit-System’ would also be connected with other databases like the VIS (CEC 2008: 69).

  7. 7.

    Future Smart Border systems in the Schengen zone suggest that data from more than 250 million third country nationals could be stored (eu-Lisa 2015c: 29).

  8. 8.

    Didier Bigo similarly explains the visions of IT and database experts on how borders should not represent ‘lines’, but function by being ‘gaseous [and] constructed via a multitude of points’ (2014: 217).

  9. 9.

    For example, the position of a European Data Protection Supervisor, who is concerned with subject’s privacy and the use of personal information, was established.

  10. 10.

    See for example Van der Ploeg and Sprenkels (2011: 74–87). With regard to Eurodac and the Dublin Convention, see Kuster and Tsianos’s report (2012).

  11. 11.

    The VIS will have a processing power of up to 450,000 transaction per hour; in the SIS database 4000 entries are created, updated or deleted per hour (eu-Lisa 2014b).

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  1. Austrian Institute for International Affairs (oiip), Vienna, Austria

    Paul Trauttmansdorff

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  1. Paul Trauttmansdorff
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Correspondence to Paul Trauttmansdorff .

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  1. oiip Austrian Institute of International Affairs, Vienna, Austria

    Cengiz Günay

  2. Munich Center for Technology in Society, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany

    Nina Witjes

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Trauttmansdorff, P. (2017). The Politics of Digital Borders. In: Günay, C., Witjes, N. (eds) Border Politics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46855-6_7

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