International Migrants‘ Day: open citizens’ presentation of the book edited by Francesca Biondi Dal Monte, Luca Raineri, Mirko Forti

A collective analysis of the pressing theoretical and practical, legal and political issues related to the increasing use of technological devices such as radars, drones, biometric scanners, algorithms and integrated databases to regulate migration flows and monitor the integrity of European borders is the focus of the book ‘Migrations and Digital Governance. People and data at Europe's borders', edited for Carocci Editore by Francesca Biondi Dal Monte, associate professor of Constitutional and Public Law; Luca Raineri, assistant professor in Security Studies, both from the Sant'Anna School; Mirko Forti, research fellow in European Union Law affiliated with the Dirpolis Institute (Law, Politics, Development) of the Sant'Anna School. The book presentation will be held on Wednesday 18 December (2.30 p.m., Room 3 of the Piazza Martiri della Libertà premises), on the occasion of the International Migrants' Day proclaimed by the United Nations, and is open to the public. Francesca Biondi dal Monte, Luca Raineri, Mirko Forti and some of the authors of the contributions will take part in order to illustrate the genesis, intentions and some of the contents of the book, and will initiate a dialogue with the audience. 

Traditional approaches to social sciences are used to considering borders as an inert datum of the international system, but the recent history of the European Union presents a dynamic horizon where jurisdictions overlap, while borders widen, extrovert and lose their materiality. Within this framework, the collection andprocessing of data on migrants is presented as useful to ensure collective security, although one has to ask whether this is not done at the expense of people's individual rights, especially those of migrants. 

‘In addressing these questions on migration, the book presents a multidisciplinary perspective that, unique in the Italian academic landscape, combines legal, political, sociological, geographical and security expertise. The various chapters, by numerous scholars, examine with a critical eye and innovative methodologies issues of increasing topicality such as the adequacy of the legal framework with regard to the use of artificial and algorithmic intelligence in immigration matters; the relationship between the integration of biometric databases and European integration; concrete cases of paradoxical outcomes related to the use and abuse of interoperable databases; the sociological consequences of ‘hotspot ’ procedures at European borders; the datafication of mobility between digitisation and bureaucratisation; the perspectives emerging from the adoption of the European Pact on Migration and Asylum. The latter act also confirms and amplifies border surveillance by outlining a system of databases connected to each other and fed by an increasingly broader set of information,’ Francesca Biondi Dal Monte stresses, pointing out, however, that ’these tools and technologies must be applied, protecting the fundamental rights of the people involved.

‘Critical studies emphasise the material and performative dimension of the digital evolution of migration governance, thus refuting the presumed objectivity of the technological tool. It is therefore a question of maintaining a balance between critical posture and empirical rigour in tackling a new and still little-explored field of study,' Luca Raineri comments.