Introduction

e-Securing the EU Borders: AI in European Integrated Border Management

“…Undoubtedly, the European Union and its integration process has been a success story, deepening the collaboration of the member states and entrusting several absolute competences of them to the European level. The Schengen Agreement, signed in 1985, paved the way for the triumph of the Single Market (1992), which allowed the four freedoms and established an "area without internal frontiers" (Burgess and Kloza, 2021). By then, the Schengen Area has been the largest region (44.000 km sea borders and 9.000 land borders) of free movement globally (Frontex, n.d.).…”

“…Last but not least, except from externalized, the border management has been technologized and so the states unilaterally and the Union as a whole are reliant on non-state actors such as private digital companies. These players provide to border and other authorities the adequate equipment to sufficiently exert their powers (Burgess and Kloza, 2021). There is lack of a globally agreed definition for AI.…”

“…Stemming from the recent "techno solutionism" wave, there is an abundance of data deriving from multiple commercial and strategic systems, and remarkable technological advancement. The suitable combination of those two elements can be translated into AI-based systems competent for asylum, migration and border control (Burgess and Kloza, 2021). AI tools can exploit the vast amount of data from databases, ad hoc border checks or travel documents, evaluate them, conduct risk assessments for individuals, forecast potential criminal threats, respond automatically to asylum applications and then make proposals to decisionmakers concerning the optimum undertaken measures and resources management (use of biometrics, UAVs, thermal cameras, lie detectors/ polygraphs, face/ fingerprints scanners etc.)…”