ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the development, role, and use of security technologies in mobility management and border control. It utilizes theoretical frameworks of security and pre-emption of risk, and D. Bigo’s “solid”, “liquid”, and “gaseous” borders to analyse advances and tensions pertinent to techno-social developments at physical, internal, and digital borders. The chapter outlines the scope and many tentacles of the migration-technology machine in Europe. It summarises key points in the rise of the “Cyber-Fortress Europe”. Mobility imperatives in the age of globalisation have somewhat altered borders’ security function as mobility itself became the key security concern. Security technologies in mobility management include strategies, policies, hardware, and software that aim to strengthen borders and filter non-citizens. Migration security technologies capture green-listers of transnational mobility. The “migration technology” apparatus, ‘a gigantic, cross-border, technology- influenced policy machine that aims to regulate the movement of aliens’, is found in countries of origin and transit.
