In recent years, technology has acquired a privileged position in debates and policy in the field of migration. We have witnessed European states and institutions put forward “techno-solutionist” arguments that first construct migration as a threat and then promise to solve it through the granting and expenditure of millions of euros on border surveillance and biometric identification technologies, often without safeguards. However, there is a persistent lack of transparency around the implementation of this type of equipment and the incorporation of Artificial Intelligence tools to migration policies. This secrecy constantly hinders attempts by civil society to thoroughly assess the impact of these developments on the lives of people crossing borders.

Over the past year, the Border Violence Monitoring Network has worked on shedding light on these changes by conducting field and desk research, FOIs and interviews on the border technology deployed in several countries along the so-called Balkan route, investigating their funding and potential impacts. Though the research on this subject continues, the result of this project is a series of six reports that will be published consecutively over the next six weeks. The upcoming reports focus on the Evros region in Greece, Cyprus, North
Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia and Croatia.