The socio-genesis of a guild of “digital technologies” justifying transnational interoperable databases in the name of security and border purposes: a reframing of the field of security professionals?

Didier Bigo (1)

1 CERI - Centre de recherches internationales (Sciences Po, CNRS)

Smart borders, intelligent systems of filtering travelers by detecting suspects of crime and terrorism through interoperable national data bases and regional agreements are proliferating. In the European Union it began with the Schengen Information System. SIS-VISEURODAC, EES, ETIAS, ECRIS are acronyms for different realizations and projects of Entry and Exit Systems, of pre-frontiers zone, of policy checks regarding police, immigration and asylum, tracing people and scoring the degree to which they can be suspected to be illegal or criminal. Security stakes have been technologized. This is a profound reconfiguration of the different regional fields of security professionals with the emergence of a transnational guild regrouping data analysts, civil engineers on IT systems and border controls, changing de facto who is deciding the limits between security and insecurity, risk and fate. This importance of the online -virtual regarding the off-line- actual is affecting freedom and criminal justice.

Keywords: security; securization; information technology; smart borders; border controls; policing; interoperability; IT systems; transnational guild; international political sociology; Bourdieu

Domains: Humanities and Social Sciences; Political science

Didier Bigo. The socio-genesis of a guild of “digital technologies” justifying transnational interoperable databases in the name of security and border purposes: a reframing of the field of security professionals?. International Journal of Migration and Border Studies, 2020, Special Issue on: Freedom, Technology, Surveillance: Paradoxes in the Making, 6 (1/2), pp.74 - 92. ⟨10.1504/IJMBS.2020.10030062⟩. ⟨hal-03585713⟩