Smart Borders, Digital Identity and Big Data
How Surveillance Technologies Are Used Against Migrants
By Emre Korkmaz
Published
Jan 11, 2024Page count
160 pagesISBN
978-1529233506Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Bristol University PressPublished
Dec 8, 2023Page count
176 pagesISBN
978-1529233513Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Bristol University PressPublished
Dec 8, 2023Page count
176 pagesISBN
978-1529233513Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Bristol University Press
Smart Borders, Digital Identity and Big Data
In recent years, UN agencies, global tech corporations, states and humanitarian NGOs have invested in advanced technologies from smart borders to digital identities to manage migratory movements. These are surveillance technologies that have intensified the militarization of borders and became a testing ground for surveillance capitalism.
This book shows how these technologies reproduce structural inequalities and discriminative policies. Korkmaz reveals the way in which they grant extensive powers to states and big tech corporations to control communities.
Unpacking the effects of surveillance capitalism on vulnerable populations, this is a much-needed intervention that will be of interest to readers in a range of fields.
"This is a brilliant, well-informed account of how migrants have become the canaries in the surveillance capitalist mine. The sections on smart borders, including inventions like 'Arizona' and the possible application of AI, are revelatory and somewhat frightening. The author convincingly argues that some of the means of controlling migrants will soon be applied to legal residents and citizens.” Robin Cohen, University of Oxford
"Accessibly written and refreshingly bold, this book explores migration and security tech through a unique lens of surveillance capitalism, showing how capitalism influences global mobility, especially in the Global South." Sanja Milivojevic, University of Bristol
“This eye-opening book proposes a reading of smart borders, digital identity and the control of migratory movements via surveillance capitalism, showing how structural inequalities are perpetuated, affecting society as a whole.” Sara Vannini, University of Sheffield
“In this remarkable book, Emre Korkmaz both pinpoints the political, economic, and technical logics fuelling the application of AI to migration control and sets out an agenda for ending the structural justice it unleashes.” Tony Roberts, Institute of Development Studies
Emre Eren Korkmaz is Departmental Lecturer of Migration and Development at the University of Oxford.
Introduction: Canaries in the Coal Mine
1. Migration and (Surveillance) Capitalism
2. Migration and (Big) Data Analysis
3. Smart Borders
4. Digital Identity and Surveillance Capitalism
Conclusion: How Can We Resist?
