Securing the Future? IDentity and Security among Migrants, Policymakers, and Tech Developers
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Published
27-03-2023
Kristina Grünenberg
Anja Simonsen
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6524-9761
Anja Simonsen
Abstract
As an attempt to ensure national security, there has been an increased use of biometric technologies in recent years. These involve a wide range of technologically mediated practices which format and digitalize bodily attributes such as fingerprints, iris and face, for the registration and verification of the identity of individuals. While biometrics are used in a wide range of settings and assume an increasingly important regulating role in society, their use is particularly salient in the tracking of movements and identification of migrants. Building on multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork, this article seeks to explore the importance of- and desire for security and its entanglement with the production of identities among Somali migrants, European Union policy makers and tech developers. We are particularly interested in the various ways in which what we call biometric “IDentities” are negotiated, as borders have become ubiquitous and extend into the far corners of society. In the article, we argue that the relationship between security and biometric technologies is important for both Somali migrants, tech developers and policy makers albeit in very different ways. The practices emerging from such entanglements are all informed by contextual and sociocultural understandings and negotiations of security and identity along multiple lines. Additionally, we argue that security plays a prominent role despite these actors’ very different positions in the biometric border world.
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Keywords
biometric technologies, borders, security, migrant identity, tech development
References
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Aradau, C., & Blanke, T. (2017). Politics of prediction: security and the time/space of governmentality in the age of big data. European Journal of Social Theory, 20(3), 373-391.
Bellagamba, A., & Klute, G. (2008). Tracing Emergent Powers in Contemporary Africa: Introduction. In A. Bellagamba & G. Klute (Eds.), Beside the State: Emergent Powers in Contemporary Africa (pp. 6-21). Köln: Köppe.
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Breckenridge, K. (2014). Biometric State: The Global Politics of Identification and Surveillance in South Africa, 1850 to the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brekke, J.P., & Brochmann, G. (2014). Stuck in transit: secondary migration of asylum seekers in Europe, national differences, and the Dublin regulation. Journal of Refugee Studies, 28(2), 145-162.
Bubandt, N. (2005). Vernacular security: the politics of feeling safe in global, national and local worlds. Security Dialogue, 36(3), 275-296.
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Grünenberg, K. (2020a). Body cartographers: Mapping bodies and borders in the laboratory. In K. F. Olwig, K. Grünenberg, P. Møhl & A. Simonsen (Eds.), The Biometric Border World: Technologies, Bodies and Identities on the Move (pp. 34-53). London: Routledge.
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Grünenberg, K. (2022). Wearing Someone Else’s Face: Biometric Technologies, Anti-spoofing and the Fear of the Unknown. Ethnos. 87(2), 223-240.
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Lyon, D. (2008). Biometrics, identification and surveillance. Bioethics, 22(9), 499-508.
Magnet, S. A. (2011). When Biometrics Fail: Gender, Race, and the Technology of Identity. Durham: Duke University Press.
Masco, J. (2017) ‘Boundless informant’: Insecurity in the age of ubiquitous surveillance. Anthropological Theory, 17(3), 382-403.
Menkhaus, K. (2007). Governance without government in Somalia. Spoilers, state, and the politics of coping. International Security, 31(3), 74-106.
Møhl, P. (2019). Border control and blurred responsibilities at the airport. In T. Diphoorn & E. Grassiani (Eds.), Security Blurs: The Politics of Plural Security Provision (pp. 118-135). London: Routledge.
Olwig, K. F., Grünenberg, K., Møhl, P. & Simonsen, A. (2020). The Biometric Border World: Technologies, Bodies and Identities on the Move. London: Routledge.
Pedersen, A. M., & Holbraad, M. (2013). Introduction: Times of Security. In M. Holbraad & A. M. Pedersen (Eds.), Times of Security: Ethnographies of Fear, Protest and the Future (pp. 1-27). London: Routledge.
Renders, M., & Terlinden, U. (2010). Negotiating statehood in a hybrid political order: the case of Somaliland. Development and Change, 41(4), 723-746.
Scheel, S. (2019). Autonomy of Migration: Appropriating Mobility within Biometric Border Regimes. London and New York: Routledge.
Schuster, L. (2005). The continuing mobility of migrants in Italy: shifting between places and statuses. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 31(4), 757-774.
Simonsen, A. (2017). Tahriib: The Journey into the unknown. An Ethnography of mobility, insecurities and uncertainties among Somalis en route (Unpublished PhD Dissertation). Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen.
Simonsen, A. (2020a). Crossing (biometric) borders: turning ‘gravity’ upside down. Ethnos, 87(2), 306-320.
Simonsen, A. (2020b). ‘In-formation’ and ‘Out-formation’: routines and gaps en route. In K. F. Olwig, K. Grünenberg, P. Møhl & A. Simonsen (Eds.), The Biometric Border World: Technologies, Bodies and Identities on the Move (pp. 147-160). London: Routledge.
Thales Group (2022). Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) overview. A short history. Available at: https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/markets/digital-identity-and-security/government/biometrics/afis-history
Tsing, A. L. (2005). Friction. An Ethnography of Global Connection. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Van der Ploeg, I. (1999). The illegal body: ‘Eurodac’ and the politics of biometric identification. Ethics and Information Technology, 1, 295-302.
Amoore, L. (2013). The Politics of Possibility: Risk and Security Beyond Probability. Durham: Duke University Press.
Apap, J., & Carrera, S. (2003). Maintaining security within borders. Towards a permanent state of emergency in the EU? Centre for European Policy Studies, Policy Brief no. 41, 1-13. Available at: http://www.ceps.be.
Appel, H., Anand, N., & Gupta, A. (2018). Introduction. In N. Anand, A. Gupta & H. Appel (Eds.), The promise of infrastructure (pp. 1-41). Durham: Duke University Press.
Aradau, C., & Blanke, T. (2017). Politics of prediction: security and the time/space of governmentality in the age of big data. European Journal of Social Theory, 20(3), 373-391.
Bellagamba, A., & Klute, G. (2008). Tracing Emergent Powers in Contemporary Africa: Introduction. In A. Bellagamba & G. Klute (Eds.), Beside the State: Emergent Powers in Contemporary Africa (pp. 6-21). Köln: Köppe.
Besteman, C. (2017). Experimenting in Somalia: The new security empire. Anthropological Theory, 17(3), 404-420.
Bigo, D., & McCluskey, E. (2018). What Is a PARIS approach to (in)securitization? Political Anthropological Research for International Sociology. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198777854.013.9.
Bourne, M., Johnson, H., & Lisle, D. (2015). Laboratizing the border: the production, translation and anticipation of security technologies. Security Dialogue, 46(4), 307-325.
Bradbury, M. (2008). Becoming Somaliland. Oxford: James Currey.
Breckenridge, K. (2005). The biometric state: the promise and peril of digital government in the New South Africa. Journal of Southern African Studies, 31(2), 267-282.
Breckenridge, K. (2014). Biometric State: The Global Politics of Identification and Surveillance in South Africa, 1850 to the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brekke, J.P., & Brochmann, G. (2014). Stuck in transit: secondary migration of asylum seekers in Europe, national differences, and the Dublin regulation. Journal of Refugee Studies, 28(2), 145-162.
Bubandt, N. (2005). Vernacular security: the politics of feeling safe in global, national and local worlds. Security Dialogue, 36(3), 275-296.
European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) (2018). FRA work in the ‘hotspots’. Available at: https://fra.europa.eu/en/theme/asylum-migration-borders/fra-work-hotspots.
Fratzke, S. (2015). Not adding up: the fading promise of Europe’s Dublin system. EU asylum: Towards 2020 project. Migration Policy Institute.
Frontex (2022). European Border and Coast Guard Agency. Available at: https://frontex.europa.eu/about-frontex/who-we-are/origin-tasks/
Frontex (2019). Budget 2018. Available at: https://frontex.europa.eu/assets/Key_Documents/Budget/Budget_2018.pdf.
Gates, K. (2011). Our Biometric Future: Facial Recognition Technology and the Culture of Surveillance. New York: New York University Press.
Grünenberg, K. (2020a). Body cartographers: Mapping bodies and borders in the laboratory. In K. F. Olwig, K. Grünenberg, P. Møhl & A. Simonsen (Eds.), The Biometric Border World: Technologies, Bodies and Identities on the Move (pp. 34-53). London: Routledge.
Grünenberg, K. (2020b). The biometric community: friends, foes, and the political economy of biometrics. In K. F. Olwig, K. Grünenberg, P. Møhl & A. Simonsen (Eds.), The Biometric Border World: Technologies, Bodies and Identities on the Move (pp. 53-69). London: Routledge.
Grünenberg, K. (2021). The Face of ‘the other’: Biometric Facial Recognition, Imposters and the Art of Outplaying them. In S. Woolgar, E. Vogel, D. Moats & C.F. Helgesson (Eds.), The Imposter as Social Theory: Thinking with Gate Crashers, Cheats and Charlatans (pp. 191-217). Bristol: Bristol University Press.
Grünenberg, K. (2022). Wearing Someone Else’s Face: Biometric Technologies, Anti-spoofing and the Fear of the Unknown. Ethnos. 87(2), 223-240.
Grünenberg, K., Møhl, P., Fog Olwig, K. & Simonsen, A. (2022). Issue Introduction: IDentities and Identity: Biometric Technologies, Borders and Migration. Ethnos, 87(2), 211-222..
Hansen, P. (2006). Revolving Returnees. Meanings and Practices of Transnational Return Among Somalilanders (Unpublished PhD Dissertation). Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen.
IOM UN Migration. (2013). Tackling high youth unemployment in Somaliland. Available at: https://www.iom.int/news/tackling-high-youth-unemployment-somaliland.
Jensen, S., & Stepputat, F. (2013). Afterword. In M. Holbraad & A. M. Pedersen (Eds.), Times of Security: Ethnographies of Fear, Protest and the Future (pp. 213-221). London: Routledge.
Lyon, D. (2008). Biometrics, identification and surveillance. Bioethics, 22(9), 499-508.
Magnet, S. A. (2011). When Biometrics Fail: Gender, Race, and the Technology of Identity. Durham: Duke University Press.
Masco, J. (2017) ‘Boundless informant’: Insecurity in the age of ubiquitous surveillance. Anthropological Theory, 17(3), 382-403.
Menkhaus, K. (2007). Governance without government in Somalia. Spoilers, state, and the politics of coping. International Security, 31(3), 74-106.
Møhl, P. (2019). Border control and blurred responsibilities at the airport. In T. Diphoorn & E. Grassiani (Eds.), Security Blurs: The Politics of Plural Security Provision (pp. 118-135). London: Routledge.
Olwig, K. F., Grünenberg, K., Møhl, P. & Simonsen, A. (2020). The Biometric Border World: Technologies, Bodies and Identities on the Move. London: Routledge.
Pedersen, A. M., & Holbraad, M. (2013). Introduction: Times of Security. In M. Holbraad & A. M. Pedersen (Eds.), Times of Security: Ethnographies of Fear, Protest and the Future (pp. 1-27). London: Routledge.
Renders, M., & Terlinden, U. (2010). Negotiating statehood in a hybrid political order: the case of Somaliland. Development and Change, 41(4), 723-746.
Scheel, S. (2019). Autonomy of Migration: Appropriating Mobility within Biometric Border Regimes. London and New York: Routledge.
Schuster, L. (2005). The continuing mobility of migrants in Italy: shifting between places and statuses. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 31(4), 757-774.
Simonsen, A. (2017). Tahriib: The Journey into the unknown. An Ethnography of mobility, insecurities and uncertainties among Somalis en route (Unpublished PhD Dissertation). Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen.
Simonsen, A. (2020a). Crossing (biometric) borders: turning ‘gravity’ upside down. Ethnos, 87(2), 306-320.
Simonsen, A. (2020b). ‘In-formation’ and ‘Out-formation’: routines and gaps en route. In K. F. Olwig, K. Grünenberg, P. Møhl & A. Simonsen (Eds.), The Biometric Border World: Technologies, Bodies and Identities on the Move (pp. 147-160). London: Routledge.
Thales Group (2022). Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) overview. A short history. Available at: https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/markets/digital-identity-and-security/government/biometrics/afis-history
Tsing, A. L. (2005). Friction. An Ethnography of Global Connection. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Van der Ploeg, I. (1999). The illegal body: ‘Eurodac’ and the politics of biometric identification. Ethics and Information Technology, 1, 295-302.
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