Paper Short Abstract:

This paper critically examines the fears surrounding emotional biometric surveillance within the context of state-corporate migration control concerning smartphone user refugees crossing EU borders. The paper highlights the potential challenges to sensory migration profiling by digital algorithms.

Paper Abstract:

This paper critically examines the fears surrounding emotional biometric surveillance within the context of state-corporate migration control concerning smartphone user refugees crossing EU borders. Rooted in a critical security studies perspective, this study explores the complex intersections of sensory security screenings, such as digital sentiment analysis and self-censorship within the context of migration control practices. Sentiment analysis is the process of analyzing digital text to determine if the emotional tone of the message is positive, negative, or neutral. Today, companies have large volumes of text data like emails, customer support chat transcripts, social media comments that are screened by automatic language prediction models to profile suspicious smartphone users. This paper assess how sentiment analysis is used to monitor digital communication or assess emotional states of suspected migrant groups. As a reaction to these monitoring processes, the paper also discusses the harms of self-censorship that refugees may adopt in response to sensory profiling techniques. By critically examining the fears of refugees surrounded by sensory surveillance techniques, this ethnographic reflection investigates the emotional dimensions of security technologies and how it feeds collective chilling effects among conflict refugees.

The paper emphasizes the need for ethical considerations in the deployment of sensory securitization by emotional biometric screening and highlights the potential challenges to sensory migration profiling by digital algorithms. Accordingly, this paper underscores the urgent need for a nuanced understanding of the emotional landscapes shaped by these behavioral control technologies.