Securing the Future? IDentity and Security among Migrants, Policymakers, and Tech Developers

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.