Short abstract:

The legally sanctioned processing of biometric data in the EU's migration and border control databases has increased rapidly over the last decade. This paper seeks to analyze the inherent logics, anticipated risks and discursive shifts in experts' views on interoperability and shared personal data.

Long abstract:

Legally sanctioned management of sensitive personal and biometric data in large scale migration and border control EU-databases has rapidly increased in the past decade. The databases include EURODAC, VIS and SIS-II but more are planned, including EES, ETIAS and ECRIS-TCN. Currently, EU-Lisa with its advisory groups of member state representatives, is engaged in technological and organizational developments aiming for easier access to data. Interoperability between the databases, including Europol and Interpol data sources, is in this context framed as the key to effective detection, identification, and prevention of crime and security threats. However, this development where functionalities over time evolve and expand aligns also with a general societal ‘securitization’ and criminalization of migration more specifically.

In this paper, we identify the inherent logics and anticipated risks as articulated in expert discourses concerning the contemporary Swedish technological developments; the expanded use of biometrics; and the organisational implementation of interoperability. The analysis is based on perspectives provided in interviews with migration and law enforcement authorities, data protection experts, lawyers, and NGOs, and on studies of two investigations initiated by the Swedish Government, focusing Biometrics in law enforcement (SOU 2023:32) and Interoperability between the EU Information systems (Ds 2022:21). In the analysis, we identify two main points that add to the familiar perspectives on the securitisation and criminalisation of migration: 1) a shift in focus from situation and context to individual identity, and 2) a shift in temporality from a valid suspicion of risk to an alarm system.