Border security and the digitalisation of sovereignty: insights from EU borderwork

• Published in: European security (London, England) Vol. 31; no. 3; pp. 475 - 494
• Main Authors: Oliveira Martins, Bruno, Lidén, Kristoffer, Jumbert, Maria Gabrielsen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon Routledge 03.07.2022; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Biometrics; Border patrol; Borders; borderwork; digital sovereignty; European Union; extraterritorialization; Information gathering; Internalization; interoperability; Migration; security; Software; Sovereignty; Surveillance
• ISSN: 0966-2839; 1746-1545
• DOI: 10.1080/09662839.2022.2101884

The European Union's effort at controlling its external borders is an endeavour that increasingly relies on digital systems: from tools for information gathering and surveillance to systems for communicating between different agencies and across member states. This makes EU borders a key site for the politics of "digital sovereignty" - of controlling digital data, software and infrastructures. In this article, we propose a new understanding of how the concepts of digital and sovereignty interplay: sovereignty by digital means, sovereignty of the digital, and sovereignty over the digital. We do it by analysing three key manifestations within the EU's borderwork: firstly, the expansion of EURODAC to include facial biometric data; secondly, the creation of the (future) shared Biometric Matching System (sBMS); and thirdly, the EU-funded West Africa Police Information System (WAPIS). These databases and systems exemplify three transformations of EU borderwork that invoke different dimensions of digital sovereignty: expansion of techniques for governing migration; interoperability of EU databases facilitating the internalisation of borders through domestic policing; and extra-territorialization of borderwork beyond the geographic limits of the EU.