Lawrence Peter Ampofo
Spanish Immigration Policy and Technological Determinism
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Spanish Immigration Policy and Technological DeterminismOne of the major elements of Spain’s immigration policy following the Madrid attacks, and a prominent example of reliance on technology, suggestive of technological determinism, was the improvement of its border citizen surveillance capability as part of the Schengen Agreement and Schengen Information System, to cultivate a ‘more systematic entry of persons considered undesirable aliens in the Schengen Information System’ (Guild, 2001: 233 in Carr & Massey, 2006). Alongside this, another Europe-wide initiative was launched in order to better monitor the flow of asylum-seekers in the region. The EU created and implemented a fingerprint database called EURODAC, which ‘enables Member States to identify asylum applicants and persons who have been apprehended while unlawfully crossing an external frontier of the Community’ (Europa, 2010: 1). Other initiatives were launched at the Member State level of the European Union that focused on a digital response to the securitisation of immigration in the region. The ‘rules on destruction of data regarding asylum seekers after their use have been relaxed. Foreigners, and in particular asylum seekers, no longer have the benefit of removal of their data from the databases once their files are completed. All the time periods for retention of data have been substantially extended’ (Guild, 2001: 243 in Carr & Massey, 2006). Finally, another initiative that the Spanish Government agreed to partake in, along with other EU Member States, was the Passenger Name Record Agreement whereby travellers to the US from the EU are required to share their details with the US Government. The information is then stored on a database in order to cross-reference with information stored in other crime-related databases. These initiatives highlight the extent to which nation states believed that illegal immigration could be adequately dealt with using technological solutions, in effect, resonant of technological determinism. The limitations of this stance have been highlighted by scholars, such as Robert Imre, who commented that the implementation of technology to solve the problem of illegal immigration is counter-productive: “I think that as these things shift and change, governments initially never get it right, governments initially jump in and try to stoke the flames of fear as it were and I think that where we see technology actually influencing things is where we see the sort of securitisation of people today.”33 Imre’s comment demonstrates the notion that governments’ attempts to protect their borders using technology create an environment of securitisation and result in greater unrest amongst populations than illegal immigration. The post-11-M security environment in which Spain’s immigration policies were drawn up demonstrates the ways in which the Government relied on the analysis of digital data as a means of profiling people and groups. Digital data comprising personal travel information, biometric information and financial transactions, amongst others, were regularly analysed in order to make operational decisions on whether a particular person or group constituted a potential security risk. The Deputy Head of Spain’s Centro Nacional de Inteligencia, Elena Sánchez-Blanco, buttressed this point when she commented that in the post-11 September and 11 March world, no one country had the ability to protect itself in isolation and that ‘new technology to modernize the CNI and enhance its performance [was]…needed’ (cited in Celaya, 2009: 28). The Government’s reliance on technological solutions to enforce new laws on immigration and terrorism stemmed from the belief that technologies can reveal the level of risk posed by a particular person or community. In this sense, the belief that technological solutions are a panacea for immigration problems corresponds very closely to the central hypothesis of this thesis, that the availability of new technologies increases the capacities of terrorist and counter-terrorist agencies to achieve their communication objectives. However, the strategy of reliance upon technological solutions has been criticised by experts as indicative of ‘planned actuarial strategies that rely upon the analysis of secondary data obtained through the convergence of technologies and databases to survey individuals and suspect groups who have previously been identified as a potential risk’. The use of technology in tandem with border control and counter-terrorism has been referred by Roger Clark as “Dataveillance”, which describes the ‘systematic use of personal data systems in the investigation or monitoring of the actions or communications of one or more persons’ (Clarke, 1987: 2). Clarke’s assertion is reminiscent of that put forward by Imre, that overreliance on technology for complex issues such as immigration and terrorism can be problematic. It also suggests that counter-terrorism strategies should be social constructivist endeavours rather than techno-determinist ones. However, the aggregation and analysis of personal data to collectively police migratory flows and terrorism have been called into question. The ability of biometric data, for example, to provide an effective deterrent against terrorist activity has been questioned by a range of scholars. The first problem is that individuals classified as security risks would already be visible to border control agents and anyone that potentially presented a danger would not be recognised by biometric information. Another is that the entire premise of illegal immigration and terrorism is to circumvent the systems used to police it. Widgren et al. argued ‘improved entry controls will be met with improved circumvention methods, be it with newly forged travel documents or in wholly clandestine ways’ and instead penalise honest citizens (Widgren et al., 2005: 3). One of the main problems with technological responses to the securitisation of immigration is that the encroachment of technology into security strategy raises fears amongst Spain’s migrant communities that the use of databases in policing migration leads to the unfair treatment of migrants (Celaya, 2009: 26). Such fears have been given further credence by the range of new legal initiatives to combat the new style of terrorism it faces such as the fact that terrorism suspects can be held incommunicado for a maximum of thirteen days (Amnesty International, 2009). Such measures, inspired by the collection and analysis of personal digital data from databases and other technology suggest that the terrorist threat in Spain is being fought quantitatively and ‘materially and normatively shaped and framed to suit the interests of actors interested in “policing at a distance”’ (Celaya, 2009: 26). To summarise, Spain has securitised its immigration policy, along with the European Union and the US in an effort to curb potential security threats that come with the free movement of people. However, the measures taken by Spain, particularly its reliance on technological solutions to underpin this new policy, have limitations. The next section of this chapter will analyse how the securitisation of immigration has limited Spain from access to potential increases in immigrants, and how technological solutions incubate the notion that Spain is a fortress. In addition, it will discuss how the securitisation of immigration could be used for political gain and suggests alternative methods of contending with this issue. Directory: portal -> files -> 4733003 files -> Impact case study (ref3b) files -> Ethics and Factual Television: a short history files -> P. O. Box 27, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland tel. 358-9-191 58080 / 22216; fax 358-9-191 58096 / 23008 files -> The impact of a pledge campaign and the promise of publicity: a randomized controlled trial of charitable donations files -> Diversity and Voice: the Political Participation of Young People in the European Union files -> Chapter 15 a voice in Decision Making: young children in Denmark Stig Broström Introduction Download 1.29 Mb. 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