European borders have been the stage of decades-long efforts to militarise and securitise the control of migration. Huge sums of public money have been invested in deploying security and defense tools and equipment to curb arrivals towards the EU territory, both via externalisation policies in countries in the Middle East and North Africa and at Europe’s borders themselves.
In this strategy of “muscling-up” the borders, technology has played a crucial role. Often presented as promising, objective and infallible, technology is used to surveil, control and allegedly even predict mobility in the Mediterranean region, while making a distinction between those who are allowed to enter the Schengen territory from those who aren’t. But is it so? And what are the consequences for the people subjected to these technologies?
Webinar’s programme: