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PEPTalk #2: Covid-19 and Europe’s technological borders

Border control in Europe is carried out with a variety of technologies to control the mobility of people. The issuing of passports, travel documents, visa applications and asylum requests requires databases, fingerprints, and various surveillance tools. How do Covid-19 policies affect people’s travel in and to Europe? One of the initial responses to Covid-19 consisted of the closing of the external borders of the Schengen Zone and the introduction of travel restrictions in the Schengen countries. Since then, corona tests and contact tracking and tracing apps have been developed. Currently, the introduction of ‘vaccine passports’ is being discussed. How do the different technologies affect various sorts of travelers and migrants? What are the possible long-term consequences of Covid-19 regulations for Europe’s technological border control?
Date
11 February 2021
Time
12:00 -13:00

On 11 February, 2021, we will discuss these issues in our PEPTalk with Annalisa Pelizza and Rocco Bellanova. The conversation is moderated by Huub Dijstelbloem. If you want to join, please register via pept@uva.nl and you will receive the Zoom link by email.

Register via pept@uva.nl

Annalisa Pelizza is Professor of Science and Technology Studies at the University of Bologna. Her research focuses on the sociotechnical aspects of data infrastructures, including ontologies and interoperability. She is the principal investigator of the ERC project Processing Citizenship on the digital registration of migrants as co-production of citizens, territory and Europe. Her recent publications include ‘“No Disease for the Others”: How COVID-19 data can enact new and old alterities”’, in Big Data and Society; and ‘Processing Alterity, Enacting Europe. Migrant registration and identification as co-construction of individuals and polities’, in Science, Technology and Human Values.

Rocco Bellanova is researcher at the University of Amsterdam, and affiliated to the ERC project Follow on the tracing of the networks of terrorism financing. His research focuses on European data-driven security practices and data protection. His recent publications include ‘Controlling the Schengen Information System (SIS II): The Infrastructural Politics of Fragility and Maintenance’, in Geopolitics, together with Georgios Glouftsios and ‘The algorithmic regulation of security: An infrastructural perspective’ in Regulation & Governance, with Marieke de Goede.

Huub Dijstelbloem is Professor of Philosophy of Science and Politics at the University of Amsterdam and Senior Researcher at the Scientific Council for Government Policy in The Hague. Together with Beate Roessler, he is founder of the Platform for the Ethics and Politics of Technology. His current research concerns the politics of border control and long-term climate policy. His work has been published in Nature, Security Dialogue, Geopolitics, Journal of Borderlands Studies, International Political Sociology, Sociology of Health and Illness and Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning. His forthcoming book Borders as Infrastructure: The Technopolitics of Border Control will be published by the MIT Press.

PEPT website: uva.nl/pept