EU Borders in Digital Shift: When people are not treated as people, but as a security problem

Over the last decade, the European Union has undergone a significant shift towards the digitalization of border security in ‘so-called’ migration management. Indeed, the current EU securitization policy cites digital technologies – including migration prediction tools, biometrics, lie detectors, language recognition technology, drones etc. – as central for detecting and averting the potential threat and danger migrants and refugees pose for the ‘safety’ and ‘stability’ of Europe. The most recent shift to the political right in various EU elections, which were predominantly won on the back of anti-immigration and refugee rhetoric and wrapped in political promises to ‘protect’ Europe’s borders, shows that national safety and border securitization are at the heart of the political agenda of many EU member states. Such rhetoric, which prioritizes the militarization of borders over the human rights of migrants and refugees, simultaneously facilitates a greater political and legal push towards the development and use of digital technology for the purpose of ‘migration management’. Against this backdrop, migrants tend to be viewed as a security threat and/or a burden for the state. 

Since 2007, the European Commission has invested over 3 billion EUR into research on technology and border security systems. Additionally, the need for contactless migration management tools has intensified in the context of the covid-19 pandemic. Today, according to the European Migration Network, there is a shift amongst the great majority of EU member states to provide biometric-based digital identity documents and residence permits to third nationals with the goal to enhance national security and to mainstream the administrative process. Indeed, six EU member states – including Germany, the Netherlands, Hungary and Lithuania – use Artificial Intelligence (AI) such as face recognition for the establishment of identity of nationals and to prevent fraud.  The EU is further in the process of improving the efficiency of  the European Boarder and Coast Agency), also known as FRONTEX, which includes enhanced interoperability of data across the EU and the surveillance of the central and eastern Mediterranean via military drones. Lastly, in Germany, a research project funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Devel­op­ment (BMZ), is currently underway to develop an AI tool to predict and assess irregular migration flows into Germany. 

A new policy landscape: The EU AI Act and the new Pact on Migration and Asylum

The increased use of digital technologies in the migration context has irrevocably transformed how borders are conceptualized, enforced and legislated. Indeed, this trend towards the digitalization of borders needs to be considered against the backdrop of two recently passed EU legislations – the new Pact on Migration and Asylum and the EU Artificial Intelligence Act. The EU Artificial Intelligence Act, which regulates the use of artificial intelligence within the EU, was green lighted by the Council of the European Union on 21. May 2024 and is so far the world’s first comprehensive AI law. While the EU AI Act classifies artificial intelligence technologies in migration management as “high risk”, it does not stipulate how the use of AI technologies are controlled and monitored in the migration and asylum context. Such loopholes in the implementation of the EU AI Act for migration and asylum purposes opens up room for human rights violations, including the right to free movement, non-discrimination, protection of private life and personal data, international protection, good administration, and the right to seek asylum. 

Considering the vast impact of AI on the so-called management of migration, the European Union Artificial Intelligence Act needs to be further considered in conjunction with the policy endeavors stipulated in the new Pact on Migration and Asylum, which was formally adopted by the Council of the EU on 14. May 2024. The new Pact on Asylum and Migration aims to streamline the procedural management of asylum across the EU and to fast-track the asylum process by expanding the system of biometric data (including facial images) collection of migrants and automatic sharing. This includes a pre-screening at the EU’s external borders that mandates various security checks that are potentially performed by AI technology for the purpose of decision making. These biometric data will be checked across large national EU data banks, including immigration databases such as Eurodac and large IT systems operated by Europol and Interpol, with the goal to establish whether the person ‘poses a risk to national security or public order’. 

The Production of vulnerabilities and the colonial legacies of border digitalization

In light of the increasing global interest and use of AI for the purpose of border control, former UN Special Rapporteur (2017-2022) on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance, UCL Professor Tendayi Achiume, has warned that against the background of political contexts where conservative governments are on the rise, migration prediction and immigration technologies can have “serious xenophobic and racially discriminatory consequences for refugees, migrants and stateless persons. In her 2020 report she writes:

[…] governments and non-State actors are developing and deploying emerging digital technologies in ways that are uniquely experimental, dangerous and discriminatory in the border and immigration enforcement context. By doing so, they are subjecting refugees, migrants, stateless persons and others to human rights violations, and extracting large quantities of data from them on exploitative terms that strip these groups of fundamental human agency and dignity.

As argued by Achiume, border digitalization has a strong potential to intersect with other forms of digitalization to deepen existing vulnerabilities and create new forms of surveillance, makingpeople on the move more vulnerable. It is exactly at the intersection of digitalization and border control where existing vulnerabilities created by displacement, anti-immigration policies and EU-wide politics of “othering” are further exacerbated. Migrants are increasingly subject to scrutiny and control aimed at criminalizing their movement.  As a consequence, migrants and refugees’ human rights guarantees are weakened as they become increasingly more susceptible to privacy violations and arbitrary detention, arrest, and deportations. 

To this end, the use of AI by governments and transnational corporations that act in the domain of migration management reinforces existing systemic inequalities along lines of race, ethnicity, gender, and class. At the same time, these AI-based migration management practices reflect colonial legacies and further strengthen and legitimize Western imperialism and political dominance by perpetuating forms of racialized bureaucratic and military-style violence within, at, and beyond EU borders. Professor Mirca Madianou has coined the term technocolonialism to capture the historical role that data and digital innovation play in reinforcing control and surveillance on refugees and ultimately perpetuating inequalities globally. For instance, the practice of fingerprinting was originally established in the mid-19th century by the British as a colonial control tool of control and surveillance of their colonial subjects in India. Today, fingerprinting technologies are central to biometric IT systems used for the purpose of border control and the regulation of asylum. Like in the mid-19th century, fingerprinting still serves as a powerful tool of categorisation, control, and othering – further continuing historical practices of marginalization and dominance. 

To this end, the vulnerabilities that emerge at the intersection of the digitalization of border security and migration are multifaceted. For example, the way information and communication technology is utilized in the context of border control and surveillance affects racially minoritized populations, women, and LGBTQ asylum seekers differently. This is because AI systems used for instance to determine refugee protection claims based on sexual orientation and gender identity, are not adequately trained to grasp gender diversity beyond the binary male and female, or sexual diversity beyond heterosexuality. This may lead to unjust asylum claim rejections due to algorithmic bias and stereotyping and data accuracy. Furthermore, the inaccuracy of  facial recognition systems, which tend to have much higher error rates for women and people of color, are increasingly contributing to wrongful detention of migrants and/or entrance denial. In general, the collection of biometric data on the part of the EU, which goes hand in hand with the strengthening of data interoperability for the purpose of border securitization, reflects current political trends of the criminalization of migration and asylum. These trends are further reflected in migration and asylum policies and practices which severely jeopardize migrants and refugee’s rights to safety and freedom of persecution as stipulated under the human rights and geneva conventions. It is thus imperative to view the most recent legal advancement in regards to AI technologies, migration and asylum in the context of the larger policy landscape on national safety and border security and as entangled with colonial histories and imperialistic endeavors.