MSc International Development and Humanitarian Emergencies alum Kristina Fort investigates the use of algorithmic and AI-based technologies and how they are shaping border space.
The proliferation of algorithmic and AI-based technologies used on the EU external border transforms EU’s migration management and the power dynamics among the different migration actors. Emerging technologies enable the prediction of migration flows, automatic detection of suspicious vessels, or even lie detection (even though their accuracy and precision have not been scientifically established yet). Migration management can therefore become more data-based and efficient as the availability of precise information could lead to a better-targeted response. At the same time, the border is transforming into a ‘socio-technical setting’ where power is distributed highly unequally based on the interactions between ‘human agents and technological artefacts’.
The technologies deployed in the border settings are usually developed by private companies which possess the real capabilities to create powerful algorithmic and AI-based systems. Frequently, they are supported through research grants funded by the EU institutions, such as the Horizon 2000 programme, to develop them specifically for the migration context. However, these private actors do not face any or very minimal public scrutiny and build these tools in highly opaque conditions. By purchasing their algorithmic and AI-based systems for migration management purposes, the EU institutions produce ‘a political economy of global security’ and to some extent outsource their responsibility for their use, making the datafication at the EU external border ‘a privatised, technical, secretive and unintelligible development’.
Even the European Commission itself outsources the evaluation and communication about these technologies. Two major European Commission reports assessing the use of AI in migration management were prepared by private actors (the consulting firms Deloitte and Ecorys). The resulting publications were written in very technical and almost dehumanising language centred around the efficiency of the algorithmic and AI-based tools, discounting their impact on people on the move. As the recommendations published in these reports come from ‘objective’ external actors, they allow the European Commission to avoid tough questions on this topic as well as appropriate accountability for the effects they have. Thus, the public-private partnership allows the concentration of power over and the benefit of algorithmic and AI-based tools in the hands of state authorities and private companies alike.
At the same time, people on the move are subjected to mass surveillance without their consent as their data are scraped and analysed to provide greater insight into their movement and even their motivations. While they cross the borders, they are reduced to mere clusters of data points, a dehumanising process demonstrating the dominance of the state and its agencies in the border space. Surveillance tools assume every person on the move to be a potential ‘illegal immigrant’. Therefore, crimmigration – an intersection of immigration and criminalisation – lies at the core of emerging technologies used in migration management and becomes its permanent aspect. As crimmigration is amplified through the emerging technologies used in migration management, the process leads to ‘ultimately depriving people [on the move] of their agency’ despite the EU’s proclamations about the need for a human-centric AI.
The modern surveillance landscape ‘can deepen (…) asymmetries’ among migration actors. This is happening as the EU directs millions of euros towards the surveillance tools development while outsourcing some of these systems to non-democratic repressive states through the troubling trend of border externalisation. While emerging technologies augment the surveillance capabilities of the EU, legal safeguards against algorithmic and AI-based tools in migration management are still largely missing. As the EU border space is increasingly turning into ‘a high-tech fortress Europe’ (Csernatoni, 2018, p. 179), the power asymmetries in migration management deepen further, shifting agency from people on the move to state authorities and private actors.
The views expressed in this post are those of the author and do not reflect those of the International Development LSE blog, the London School of Economics and Political Science, or the European External Action Service. The blog is based on the author’s dissertation.
Image credit: Michał Jakubowski via Unplash.
