Data is the Border:

An overview of surveillance technologies

in Europe

Jill BaronDecember 10, 2009

bor der⋅–noun

1. The frontier line which separates one country from another.

2. A side, an edge, a brink, a margin, a limit.

Maps make borders

Walls make borders

U.S. Mexican border

Israeli Separation Barrier

Frontier lines are visible borders

What about borders that are

invisible?

What if all you have is

or

00001110110101010101010101000000111010101010010100101010100001000101001010100101010101001010111100010001010010101010101001010000000011111110101001010010101010111100001101010001010100000

Your border is more like a

• A side• an edge• a brink• a margin• a limit

The EU and its borders

Brief Chronology:

• 1951: Treaty of Paris signed by France, Italy, West Germany, and the Benelux countries.

• 1985: The Schengen Agreement abolished internal borders within the European Union.

• 1986: Spain joins the EU.• 1989: Berlin Wall comes down, Germany

reunifies.• 1990: Birth of the Schengen Information System

(SIS).

SIS

An EU-wide database that allows countries to store and share alphanumeric data about:

• Irregular migrants• Asylum seekers• Wanted or missing persons• Criminals

SIS 2

• Planned deployment in Fall 2011.• Will integrate digital images and biometric

data (fingerprints and facial image) into holdings.

• Will answer police requests within 5 seconds.

Schengen Area 2009

E-passports

• In 2004 the US Visa Waiver program required that all new and existing EU Member States issue machine-readable passports with a radio-frequency identification tag (RFID).

• The RFID tag in EU passports contains biographical information about the passenger including fingerprint biometrics.

Spain

S.I.V.E. Sistema Integrado de Vigilancia Exterior (Integrated System of Border Surveillance)

2001: 1st station in Gibraltar

2009: 43 stations along the Spanish coastline

S.I.V.E. in the Canary Islands, Spain

S.I.V.E.:

• Towers provisioned with radars and infrared and thermal cameras

• Control centers remotely manipulate the radars (positioning, focus) view images and coordinate command

• Interception units (boats, helicopters) receive orders from control centers and dispatch when called.

S.I.V.E.

• Now controls 1,000 km of Spanish coastline.• Fixed and mobile detection devices can

identify a small vessel 10 km from shore• Can estimate number of passengers 5 km from

shore.• In Canary Islands, S.I.V.E. uses advanced radar

technology deployed in the war in Afghanistan.

That’s right:

War technology is being used against non-criminals.

• Spanish IT and defense systems company.• Implements technology of S.I.V.E.• Defense and security account for 29% of business.• Maker of Lanza Radar with a range of 470 km.

Radar has a moving target detection and indicator system.

• Chief Executive in USA is Emilio Gonzalez, former undersecretary of Homeland Security under the Bush Administration.

Sea Horse

• EU funded project (1.8 b euros)• Satellite-based high-speed communications

network that allows neighboring countries to exchange information and coordinate efforts against irregular migrants.

• Automatic identification system to facilitate viewing images geographically in real time.

• Technology is not new, but the application is.

To conclude,

20 years ago…

Today,

“The European policy on border security appears to be primarily focused on the development of non-tangible, technology-based and dispersed borders centered on the need to track and ‘manage’ the individual through the use of new technologies and Europe-wide databases.”

Carrera, S. (2007). “The EU Border Management Strategy: FRONTEX and the Challenges of Irregular Immigration.” Centre for European Policy Studies.