Reclaiming Control over Europe’s Technological Borders

Border control in Europe increasingly takes place in a surveillance regime that combines migration, integration and security policies with a technological apparatus for the control of the movements of citizens. This paper will sketch the need for a thorough rethinking of the rights of these citizens because of the consequences technological borders have on their privacy, bodily integrity, mobility, quality of data, information storage and exchange, and opportunities for correction. In order to do so, the paper opens up the concept of surveillance from a politico-historical perspective. Originally, at the time of the French Revolution, surveillance was introduced as a means not for the government, but for the people, and referred to a form of public oversight. As such, surveillance is a means of counter-control to ‘guard the guardians’ that can be executed by citizens and independent authorities as well. Execution of this kind of surveillance, however, is complicated, because of the weak position of migrants and supervisors, the unclear relationship between national and European parliaments, the technicality of the surveillance systems, and lack of attention of media and national publics. Moreover, counter-control is often regarded as part of a cynical political culture, where citizens are losing trust in representative and administrative institutions. Nonetheless, counter control by citizens is an important but understudied form of surveillance. The paper will discuss several strategies and empirical examples, both formal and informal ones, and explore some opportunities to strengthen the position of citizens vis-à-vis the European surveillance regime.