This session brings a fresh collaboration with the COST Action “Data Matters: Sociotechnical Challenges of European Migration and Border Control (DATAMIG)”. DATAMIG is an interdisciplinary network aimed at fostering research by bridging spheres of discourse and public intervention surrounding data issues in European migration and border control.

DATAMIG Working Group 1 is currently working on a collaborative book titled "Migration Data Matters: A Keyword Approach to the Datafication of Migration and Border Control". In this project, scholars have come together to develop an inventory of critical scholarship through keyword-based chapters. These keywords, written by multi-author teams, highlight significant themes related to the digitalisation and datafication of migration, mobilities, and borders.

In our upcoming Circle, we will focus on the following chapters:

“Technologies on the Move” by Andrés Pereira and Sara Bellezza

With technologies on the move, we propose a concept that refers to the assemblage of ideas, techniques, objects, experts, legal frameworks, practices and models of migration control that accompany the circulation of technologies in multi-directional ways. Technologies on the move comprises a research agenda that includes externalization and circulation of bordering technologies from the centers to the periphery, but also contests this unidirectional viewpoint by putting emphasis on the circularity of the movement of technologies, from the peripheries to the centers. In line with the autonomy of migration, technologies on the move considers practices of appropriation and strategic interaction with technologies to facilitate movement against global (im)mobility regimes. As such, the movement of technologies is inextricably linked to the movement of migration across borders: the circulation of technologies is preceded by the movement and the strategic use of technologies by migrants, but also furthers movement when border deterrence mechanisms threaten to hinder circular mobility. This keyword intends to constitute new decentered views on the contested circulation of migratory control by investigating externalization processes of bordering technologies, south-south cooperations, the constitution of regional and global technological zones, the diffusion and hybridization of technologies and legal frameworks through international organizations and the export and import or expansion of techno-humanitarian regimes, for example for the extraction of data. From above to below, from the peripheries to the centers, and vice versa, technologies on the move is an approach that highlights the colonial and unequal power relations across the borders.

“Accountability” by Alice Fill, Ismini Mathioudaki, and Annalisa Meloni

Accountability is a concept that integrates various disciplines, including legal studies, international relations, and philosophy. At its core, it can be understood as a relationship among actors. The process of datafication in migration and border management is profoundly altering how this relationship is conceived, mediated, and connected to justice. This entry proposes utilising accountability as a lens to examine how responsibilities arising from both positive and negative obligations in the field of migration are becoming blurred and negotiated, encompassing both legal and extra-legal concerns. In particular, this analysis begins by mapping accountability voids and frictions that emerge from the digitalisation of migration and border governance, within, at, and before the EU borders. Specifically, it highlights how claims of accountability are shifting among human and non-human actors, national and international entities, agencies, and between the EU and third countries. This shift results in the disentanglement of violations or decisions from the responsibility for them.
Accountability in the field of European migration, asylum, and border control policies is a pressing issue, particularly in the context of the many tragedies involving migrants who die attempting to reach the European border. While certain sections of civil society and scholarship have extensively articulated and documented how the EU and its Member States are implicated in this reality, the prevailing political discourse blames smugglers, criminalised NGOs, migrants themselves, and hostile third countries. Moreover, externalisation policies, accelerated border procedures, and deterrence mechanisms are specifically designed to evade accountability and jurisdiction under European and international human rights law, largely deflecting responsibilities for violations. To discuss these issues, three exemplary cases are presented: the automation of decision-making in migration and asylum procedures, the interoperability among EU databases and other information-sharing schemes, and the consequences of datafication in a context of increasing externalisation, characterised by a pre-emptive approach. Datafication in the field of migration has the potential to further degrade the rule of law in this domain, leading to serious and systematic breaches of the fundamental rights of migrants that are non-imputable or unaddressed. This situation partly stems from the vulnerable position of migrants in law, reflecting their categorisation as ‘other’, which urgently needs to be rethought if human rights are to be taken seriously.

“Data Protection” by Iwan Oostrom, Rocco Bellanova, and Gloria Gonzalez Fuster

Amidst the rapid evolution of personal data protection law, particularly within the European Union (EU), data protection has become key to the shaping and framing of the increasingly data-driven border and migration policies and technologies, as well as their associated controversies and contestations. In this entry, we shed light on the meaning of data protection and the ways in which it may intertwine with borders and migration. First, we outline data protection’s historical development, from its emergence as a concern in 1960s Europe, to its elevation to an EU fundamental right separated from privacy in 2000, followed by the more recent advancements of data protection law in Europe and beyond. While offering this account, we reflect on the substance of data protection, considering its complex, evolving and contested relationship to the right to the protection of private life. This is followed by a brief overview of the key elements of the EU’s data protection governance framework. We relay some of the opportunities, challenges, and criticism that have been voiced over the capacity of data protection and its governance to safeguard the rights of people on the move. Furthermore, we introduce several key data protection principles, such as lawfulness,fairness and transparency, purpose limitation, and accuracy, while offering accounts of how these principles have been mobilised in migration-related court cases, academic research and civil society campaigns. Finally, this entry reflects on how data protection, as both an object of research and an epistemic tool, may offer novel research avenues for critical border, migration and security studies.

Register here: https://forms.gle/aSMjAqNSxWqzTXj49