Description
The heightened securitisation of migration coupled and partly executed by a biometricised governance regime constitute some of the fundamental characteristics of EU border policies. Indicatively, signs of border control biometricisation can be detected within the Eurodac system and the biometric passports. The inclusion of biometric technology in passports redefines and decisively influences the nature of migration controls. Additionally, this highly technologised hegemonic routinised practices have been normalised. The body and the human characteristics are in the disposal of police and border authorities, without the existence of criminal offense. The usage of biometric technology as conceived by the EU, the authorities and a big fraction of the society, is a safe and effective medium for ensuring security. So, the man becomes an indispensable tool for the prevalence of security and legal certainty, that essentially it is supposed to concern him. Nevertheless, he forgoes his own security, as he becomes a commodity as an information. Concomitantly, this ‘governmentality of unease’ (Bigo 2002) is nurtured by both the public and the private sector, whereby accountability issues arise. The identification and categorisation of population groups, along with data collection and surveillance points to Foucault’s governmentality and biopolitics.
Within this context, this paper aims to explore and inquire into the usage of biometric technology as a normal, safe and effective medium for ensuring security and borders. Looking at biometricisation as part and parcel of a “flourishing market” (Rodier, 2012: 13) where migratory flows are controlled through border checks, supervision and other security measures, it will seek to answer the following two key questions: whose security is protected? And how does a market-oriented reading of this securitised context (i.e., border management defined by rational, economic goals or agendas) fit in the anthropocene?
