ABSTRACT
Since 2017, German border authorities have used voice biometrics to analyse the accents of undocumented asylum seekers to pinpoint their country of origin and, consequently, determine their eligibility for asylum. This chapter analyses voice biometrics in the framework of sonic weaponization and in the sociotechnical imaginary that supports today’s voice biometric industry, with the aim to direct new critical attention to the auditory realm of top-down governmentality digital practices in the field of digital migration studies. Finally, I argue how the very sonic nature of voice and its capacity to establish intimacy is datafied and weaponized to construct digital identities and control borders—alienating the value and meaning of voice as a site to affirm one’s subjectivity and political agency.
