Year: 2024
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: This article explores the transformative impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on contemporary border management systems and its implications for migrant rights and state security. The digitalization of borders, particularly following the post-9/11 securitization wave, has introduced a complex array of AI-driven tools including facial recognition, risk profiling algorithms, behavioral analysis systems, and biometric surveillance. These technologies promise increased efficiency and control but simultaneously raise profound ethical and legal challenges, particularly regarding discrimination, data privacy, and procedural fairness. The study adopts an interdisciplinary methodology, drawing on legal analysis, empirical research, and policy evaluation to examine the deployment of AI in the European Union, United States, and Australia. It highlights how AI-enabled systems often replicate racial and ethnic biases, disproportionately affecting marginalized migrant populations. Risk assessment algorithms and biometric technologies, while promoted as neutral tools, frequently lead to discriminatory outcomes, opaque decision-making, and limited access to legal remedies. Migrants’ rights to privacy, non-discrimination, and due process—guaranteed under international human rights law and institutions such as the European Court of Human Rights—are shown to be at risk. To address these concerns, the article proposes a multi-dimensional policy framework emphasizing ethical standards, human oversight, and international cooperation. Recommendations include establishing legally binding normative frameworks for AI in migration governance, enhancing transparency and auditability, ensuring human-in-the-loop decision-making, and creating crossborder accountability mechanisms. The article calls for a paradigmatic shift from control-centric to rights-based border governance, where technological innovation supports rather than undermines fundamental rights. By critically analyzing how algorithmic governance reshapes power dynamics at national frontiers, the article contributes to urgent global debates on AI ethics, migration policy, and digital surveillance. It underscores the necessity of balancing legitimate security objectives with the moraland legal obligation to protect human dignity in an increasingly automated world.
Author: Priya SHARMA
Language: English
Subfield: Safety Research
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W7084090373