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In this article, we explore the security politics of EU database interoperability, inquiring how knowledge infrastructures underpin European security integration. Sitting at the intersection of Science and Technology Studies (STS) and critical approaches to European security, we unpack the co-constitutive relation between database anxieties and interoperability mechanisms. By database anxieties, we refer to what European institutions identify as the main epistemic and operational concerns that emerge from the current use of databases by security authorities across Europe. These anxieties are expected to be resolved by mechanisms that foster interoperability. We argue that the relation between database anxieties and interoperability mechanisms shapes the novel conditions of possibility for European security integration in a datafied world. While far-reaching in technological terms, interoperability is not about introducing a new overarching system, but about the management, re-organisation and re-purposing of datasets. Such formatting matters politically because it eventually informs sovereign acts of policing and mobility control.

The notion of digital sovereignty, also often referred to as technological sovereignty, has been gaining momentum in the European Union’s (EU) political and policy discourses over recent years. Digital sovereignty has come to supplement an already substantial engagement of the EU with the digital across various security policy domains. The goal of this article and of the overall Special Issue is to explore how the discourse and practices of digital sovereignty redefine European security integration. Our core argument is that digital sovereignty has both direct and indirect implications for European security as the EU attempts to develop and control digital infrastructures (sovereignty over the digital), as well as the use of digital tools for European security governance (sovereignty through the digital). It is thus essential to further explore digital sovereignty both in terms of European policies and of a re-articulation of sovereign power and digital technologies – what we suggest calling digital/sovereignty.

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Questions about how algorithms contribute to (in)security are under discussion across international political sociology. Building upon and adding to these debates, our collective discussion foregrounds questions about algorithmic violence. We argue that it is important to examine how algorithmic systems feed (into) specific forms of violence, and how they justify violent actions or redefine what forms of violence are deemed legitimate. Bringing together different disciplinary and conceptual vantage points, this collective discussion opens a conversation about algorithmic violence focusing both on its specific instances and on the challenges that arise in conceptualizing and studying it. Overall, the discussion converges on three areas of concern—the violence undergirding the creation and feeding of data infrastructures; the translation processes at play in the use of computer/machine vision across diverse security practices; and the institutional governing of algorithmic violence, especially its organization, limitation, and legitimation. Our two-fold aim is to show the potential of a cross-disciplinary conversation and to move toward an interactional research agenda. While our approaches diverge, they also enrich each other. Ultimately, we highlight the critical purchase of studying the role of algorithmic violence in the fabric of the international through a situated analysis of algorithmic systems as part of complex, and often messy, practices.Les questions concernant la manière dont les algorithmes affectent l’(in)sécurité deviennent de plus en plus courantes en sociologie politique internationale. Notre discussion collective s'appuie sur ces débats et les enrichit en abordant les questions portant sur la violence algorithmique. Nous soutenons qu'il est important d'analyser et de discuter de la manière dont les systèmes algorithmiques alimentent (et entretiennent) des formes spécifiques de violence, ainsi que de la façon dont ils justifient des actes violents ou redéfinissent les formes de violence jugées légitimes. Cette discussion collective réunit différents points de vue disciplinaires et conceptuels pour ouvrir un débat sur la violence algorithmique en se concentrant à la fois sur des exemples spécifiques et sur les défis à relever pour la conceptualiser et l’étudier. Cette discussion se concentre sur trois sujets de préoccupation : la violence qui sous-tend la création et l'alimentation des infrastructures de données, les processus de conversion en jeu dans l'utilisation de la vision informatique/machine à travers diverses pratiques de sécurité, et la gouvernance institutionnelle de la violence algorithmique, en particulier son organisation, sa limitation et sa légitimation. Notre double objectif est de montrer le potentiel d'une discussion interdisciplinaire et d'avancer vers un programme de recherche interactionnel. Bien que nos approches divergent, elles s'enrichissent mutuellement. Notre but est de mettre en évidence les possibilités analytiques ouvertes par l'étude de la violence algorithmique et de son role dans la fabrique des relations internationales, par le biais d'une étude des systèmes algorithmiques dans le cadre de pratiques complexes et désordonnées.Las preguntas acerca de cómo afectan los algoritmos a la (in)seguridad son cada vez más comunes en la Sociología Política Internacional. A fin de construir y sumar a estos debates, nuestro Debate Colectivo pone en primer plano las preguntas sobre la violencia algorítmica. Sostenemos que es importante abrir el debate acerca de cómo los sistemas algorítmicos alimentan (en) formas específicas de violencia, cómo justifican las acciones violentas o redefinen qué formas de violencia se consideran legítimas. A partir de la reunión de diferentes puntos de vista disciplinarios y conceptuales, este Debate Colectivo abre una conversación sobre la violencia algorítmica centrándose tanto en sus instancias específicas como en los desafíos de su conceptualización y estudio. En general, el debate converge en tres áreas de interés: la violencia que sustenta la creación y alimentación de las infraestructuras de datos, los procesos de traducción en juego en la utilización de la visión de la computadora/máquina a través de diversas prácticas de seguridad y el gobierno institucional de la violencia algorítmica, especialmente su organización, limitación y legitimación. Nuestro doble objetivo es mostrar el potencial de una conversación interdisciplinaria y avanzar hacia una agenda de investigación interactiva. Si bien nuestros abordajes divergen, se enriquecen mutuamente. Finalmente, destacamos la adquisición fundamental del estudio de las funciones de la violencia algorítmica en el tejido de lo internacional a través de un análisis situado de los sistemas algorítmicos como parte de prácticas complejas y, a menudo, desordenadas.

In Europe today, digital platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, provide essential means for millions of people to express themselves, engage in public debate, and organise politically (Poell & van Dijck, 2018). Crucially, governments are leveraging the power of platforms to impose new forms of restrictions on free expression, and engage in surveillance of individuals and online activism. This has profound implications for the rights to freedom of expression, privacy, and data protection. Further, platforms that once refused to cooperate with governments in identifying users responsible for disseminating allegedly illegal or harmful content are now expanding cooperation with authorities, including sharing data about users flagged by law enforcement and other authorities. As civil society organisations warn, this trend is contributing to ‘invasive and unlawful digital surveillance’ (Amnesty International, 2019, p. 24). This paper examines how European governments are leveraging the power of digital platforms to engage in government surveillance online, and assesses the compatibility of these measures with European human rights law. The paper applies a unique interdisciplinary perspective, bringing together law, political communication and surveillance studies. First, the paper examines how platforms’ algorithmic systems shape (and limit) information dissemination. The paper then critically analyses government-platform initiatives that exist to surveil citizens and gather information, including new measures under the EU’s proposed Digital Services Act. Third, it assesses how these measures comply with freedom of expression and the right to privacy, and concludes with recommendations on remedying problematic elements of the role platforms play in digitisation of government surveillance.

This article contributes to debates on algorithmic regulation by focusing on the domain of security. It develops an infrastructural perspective, by analyzing how algorithmic regulation is enacted through the custom-built transatlantic data infrastructures of the EU-U.S. Passenger Name Records and Terrorism Financing Tracking Program programs. Concerning regulation through algorithms, this approach analyzes how specific, commercial data are rendered transferable and meaningful in a security context. Concerning the regulation of algorithms, an infrastructural perspective examines how public values like privacy and accountability are built into international data infrastructures. The creation of data infrastructures affects existing modes of governance and fosters novel power relations among public and private actors. We highlight emergent modes of standard setting, thus enriching Yeung's (2018) taxonomy, and question the practical effects of operationalizing public values through infrastructural choices. Ultimately, the article offers a critical reading of algorithmic security, and how it materially, legally, and politically supports specific ways of doing security.

Many actors mobilize the cognitive, legal and technical tool-box of data protection when they discuss and address controversial issues such as digital mass surveillance. Yet, critical approaches to the digital only barely explore the politics of data protection in relation to data-driven governance. Building on governmentality studies and Actor-Network-Theory, this article analyses the potential and limits of using data protection to critique the ‘digital age’. Using the conceptual tool of dispositifs, it sketches an analytics of data protection and the emergence of its configuration as ‘data protection by design and by default’. This exploration reminds us that governing through data implies, first and foremost, governing digital data.

Making sense of digital security practice requires grasping how data are put to use to compose the governing of individuals. Data need to be understood in their becoming, and in their becomingsomethingacross diverse practices. To do this, we suggest embracing two conceptual tropes that jointly articulate the being together of, and in, data compositions:compostingandcomputing. With composting, we approach data as lively entities, and we explore the decaying and recycling processes inside Big Data security. With computing, we approach data as embodied and embodying elements, and we unpack the surveillance of ‘asylum speakers’. Together, composting and computing challenge recurrent images of data. Our conceptual composition takes sound as a necessary sensory counterpoint to popular data visions, notably in light of Ryoji Ikeda's artworks.

What does it mean to study security from a critical perspective? This question continues to haunt critical security studies. Conversations about normative stances, political engagement, and the role of critique are mainstays of the discipline. This article argues that these conversations tend to revolve around a too disembodied image of research, where the everyday practice of researchers is sidelined. But researchers do do research: they work materially, socially, and cognitively. They mediate between various feedback loops or fields of critique. In doing so, they actively build and exercise critique. Recognizing that fact, this article resists growing suggestions to abandon critique by, first, returning to the practice of critique through the notion of companionship. This permits us to reinvigorate our attention to the objects, persons, and phenomena through which critique gains inspiration and purpose, and that literally accompany our relationship to critique. Second, we explore what happens when our companions disagree, when critique faces controversies and (a) symmetries. Here, we support research designs of tracing credibility and establishing symmetries in order to move away from critique as denouncing positions we disagree with. Third, we discuss the relation between companionship, critique, reflexivity, and style. Here, the rhetorical practices of critical inquiry are laid out, and possibilities for its articulation in different and less silencing voices are proposed.

Chapter 1 introduces the approach taken by the authors in trying to understand the relationship between surveillance and democracy in contemporary society. It explains how a “participatory lens” is used to highlight how we as individuals in society participate in surveillance practices, and how these are shaped by vested interests, stakeholders and institutions. The participatory lens is used to analyse the consequences of harms and controversies caused by surveillance practices, and in particular those practices mediated by new technologies, to assess how participatory mechanisms shape surveillance and inform democratic practice. Chapter 1 sets out the structure of the book, its origins, related research and the three core surveillance-oriented case studies examined, namely: Automatic Number Plate Recognition, credit scoring and Neighbourhood Watch. The underlying question posed by this book is whether democracy, and the participatory practices it embodies, can enact the limits of surveillance.

This chapter outlines the experiences of attempting to exercise one’s right of access in Norway. Using rich, ethnographic examples, this chapter tests how easy or difficult it is for a data subject based in Norway to obtain their personal data, firstly by locating the required information about organisations and their data controllers and secondly by submitting subject access requests to these organisations. The chapter reflects on the differences (if any) between public and private sector organisations in the process of responding to access requests. It also considers the potential for having submitted complaints to the national Data Protection Authority in Norway about the conduct of organisations when researchers submitted access requests to them.

How to engage with the politics of privacy in the age of preemptive security? My suggestion is to start with data protection. Which, following De Hert and Gutwirth (2006), is not exactly the same of privacy. Extrapolating from their analysis of the two as different “legal tools”, I would say that privacy and data protection are two slightly different rationales of power relations: the one of privacy based on the “opacity of the individual”, and the one of data protection on the “transparency and accountability of the powerful” (Gutwirth and De Hert 2008: 275, emphasis in original). These rationales (attempt to) orientate two different loose dispositifs, each formed by a composite ensemble of elements. Some of these elements are peculiar to each dispositif, while others are shared or encompassed by both.

In 2008, debates over the deployment of body scanners in EU airports gave rise to imbroglios of technologies, bodies, law, and policies. Even- tually, these entanglements appeared to be undone and resolved by the concealment of bodies from the screens of the machines--which had, meanwhile, been renamed security scanners. Using the concept of setting, this article describes the processes of disappearance operating among a vivid multiplicity of actants and connections and identifies three main paradoxical features characterizing them. Based on this analysis, the article advances the notion of the politics of disappearance, where hetero- geneous elements--both material and immaterial, visible as well as invisible--actively contribute to the making of a security practice and, potentially, to the opening of political landscapes.

The EUROSUR system is supposed to further the surveillance of external borders of European Union Member States. From this point of view, it can be considered an important step in the construction of a controlled space. Drawing inspiration from the Foucauldian attention to programs and technologies, and mobilizing the Actor-Network-Theory concepts of setting and actant, the paper investigates EUROSUR main methodological operations. It highlights how the making of a controlled space is, first and foremost, a mise-en-discours going well beyond surveillance and prohibition: a continuous effort to make sense of a disparate multiplicity, encompassing both human and nonhuman elements, both controlled and controlling ones. From a theoretical perspective, the chapter contributes to on-going endeavors to reinvigorate the post-structuralist studies of International Relations with approaches inspired by Actor-Network-Theory.

This article presents a critical review of Helen Nissenbaum's 'Privacy In Context'. Nissenbaum's book is set to become a seminal work both for privacy scholars around the world and for many other researchers who increasingly deal with privacy-related topics. Indeed, this is a much-awaited book, advancing the theory of privacy as ‘Contextual Integrity’ presented in an often-quoted article back in 2004. Moreover, the idea of Contextual Integrity proves generally very seductive for its claim to offer a break from academic debates that have reached a ‘deadend’ and its ambition to return to everyday problems of an ‘information age society’, promising a way-out or at least a decisional matrix. All these elements, and many more that will be discussed below, justify the acclaimed status of Nissenbaum’s work. Nevertheless, when reading the book from a different point of view, both in terms of research interests and disciplinary posture, some elements of the ‘Contextual Integrity theory’ become less innovative and more debatable. For this reason, this review tries to presents a synthetic but fair description of the theoretical framework developed by Nissenbaum, pinpointing the most interesting choices and insights. Then, it advances three remarks to the attention of researchers dealing with privacy (and data protection) in Europe. Finally, it attempts to raise a more substantial critical objection to the framework itself.

Le 8 decembre 2008, la Cour Europeenne des Droits de l’Homme (CEDH) a prononce un arret decisif concernant la requete d’effacement des donnees personnelles (empreintes digitales, echantillons et profils ADN) des deux citoyens britanniques S. et Marper, conservees dans les banques des donnees de la police. La conservation illimitee des donnees de personnes non condamnees est reconnue comme une violation du droit a la protection de la vie privee. Or, compte tenu du systeme technologique mobilise et des pratiques policieres dont il est question, l’arret devient encore plus important car il fixe des limites a la « simple conservation » des donnees privees et en souligne le caractere stigmatisant. Ainsi, la CEDH parait identifier une possibilite de limiter les effets de la surveillance, aussi « soft » ou « smart » soit-elle.

Les enjeux de l’échange et de la protection des données personnelles ne sont pas une nouveauté dans les débats sur la gestion de la sécurité transatlantique et l’impact de certaines mesures sur les libertés fondamentales. La publication, en juin 2008, du Rapport final du groupe de contact à haut niveau, composé d’experts de l’Union Européenne et des Etats-Unis, ainsi que sa réception par les dirigeants politiques, a contribué à relancer le débat. Il paraît donc important de saisir cette occasion pour esquisser une première étude sur les systèmes européen et étatsunien de protection de données personnelles couvrant les activités de justice et affaires intérieures. Sans prétention à l’exhaustivité, cet article analyse les principes et les législations européenne et étatsunienne, en soulignant les limites implicites à chaque système et à la mise en relation des deux, ainsi que la nécessité d’un véritable débat politique et parlementaire pour les dépasser. Issues concerning information sharing and data protection are not a novelty in the debates on transatlantic security management and the impact of security measures on fundamental liberties. The debate has been re-launched by the publication, in June 2008, of the Final Report of the High Level Contact Group, formed by European Union and United States experts, as well as by its reception by political leaders. Therefore, this is an important occasion to draft a first study on the EU and US data protection systems covering the activities of justice and internal affairs. Surely not exhaustively, this article analyses EU and US relevant principles and legislations and it underlines the implicit limits in each system and in the set up of an agreement. Finally, it highlights the need for a real political and parliamentary debate in order to overcome the main differences and limits.

Moving away from the traditional framing of surveillance in terms of in/visibility, this article proposes a conceptual journey that investigates the potential of the notions of dis-appearance and ob-scene as alternative theoretical tools. In particular, it explores how these different perspectives can help bringing politics back into the study and the critique of surveillance.Visibility is structurally linked to invisibility, and together they configure the different modes of in/visibility allowing for the very functioning of surveillance. However, the in/visibility dyad rather than merely describe surveillance contributes to its operations and stabilisation. In order to better understand and unpack surveillance it is thus necessary to tackle its practices not only in search of who watches whom, or what, but also by studying what is concealed through in/visibility, through both hiding and exposing, and what is left out of the scene (or being pushed away) in these processes.In a dialogue with surveillance and critical security studies, this contribution examines the disappearance of bodies in the deployment of security scanners and post-Snowden developments to illustrate the productivity of dis-appearance and the emergence of surveillance’s ob-scene. Against this background, the paper argues that through the lens of the ob-scene it is possible to grasp surveillance’s ripples, and open up their political discussion.

This report presents the policy implications of introducing a decision support tool to assist security forces in countering terrorist threats in urban environments in Europe.

Mobility, risk, security, freedom and technology are prominent key words in most of the debates on the current practices of data-sharing in the European Union (EU) – United States (US) context. Even more, transatlantic data-sharing and processing is probably among the best examples to show the interconnections, and tensions, among them. No single transatlantic agreement covers all these issues, but ‘immigration management’ and ‘national security’ are the subjects of a vast array of legal and technological instruments relying on the processing of personal data. Looking at these practices permits us to understand how human mobility is conceptualized by states and states’ agencies.

Most of the academic research on the developments of EU Justice and Home Affairs (EU JHA) tends to overlook the role played by technologies in their relations with classical 'human' and institutional actors. This is particularly problematic because in official discourses, technologies are requested, designed, and built as cornerstones of European security and its external dimension. Still, apart from 'technicalities', their use and design are generally assumed as politics-free. On the contrary, this contribution brings technologies to the forefront of the research and reframes them in terms of socio-technical assemblages. From this perspective, it analyses the role of the 2011 EU Passenger Name Record project in the making of European security and its external dimension. The lesson learned is that human institutions are neither the only players nor the passive victims of technological determinisms. Rather, focusing on a socio-technical assemblage means to inquire the effective participation of different actors and thus critically discuss the making of European security in terms of politics.

This book review engages with Benjamin J. Muller's 'Security, risk and the biometric state: governing borders and bodies' (London/New York: Routledge, 2010). In this work, Muller focuses on biometrics and their application in a risk management perspective. This provides an occasion to study some of the most interesting developments in the modes of government of individuals, societies and mobilities. In particular, the choice of focusing on these technologies offers important insights into the ongoing digitalisation of borders and bodies, and their management in terms of risk. Muller’s publication is part of a growing number of studies that highlight how important it is for IR to take a more acute interest in technologies. It is also a valuable contribution to the work being done, from different perspectives, on the theory of the state and the protection of fundamental rights.

On 15 March 2006, the Data Retention Directive, demanding the retention of telecommunications data for a period of six months up to two years, was adopted. Since then, this seemingly straightforward directive has 'generated' quite an impressive number of court judgments. They range from the European Court of Justice to the administrative (e.g. Germany and Bulgaria) and constitutional courts (e.g. Romania) of some Member-States. In particular, the judgment of the German Federal Constitutional Court, delivered on 2 March 2010, has already caught the attention of several commentators, from civil society, lawyers, journalists and politicians. In the judgment, the Court annuls the German implementation laws of the Data Retention Directive. This paper has two main goals. On the one side, it aims at offering a first critical overview of this important judgment, highlighting some of the key features of the ruling and its main similarities and divergences with other similar judgments. On the other side, given the relevance of the issues at stake, it aims at contextualizing the judgment in the wider framework of European data processing and protection debates, assuming a critical posture on the increasing emphasis on proportionality as the "golden criterion" to assess and limit surveillance practices.

Les etudes de la surveillance (Surveillance studies) sont-elles en mesure d’apprehender dans leur globalite des formes atypiques de surveillance ou le presuppose d’un controle disciplinaire ne peut etre demontre ? Comment saisir ces formes de surveillance qui se developpent dans le quotidien de nos activites ? Rocco Bellanova, Paul de Hert et Serge Gutwirth se livrent a cet exercice reflexif sur leur discipline de recherche. Pour depasser les points d’achoppement des Surveillance studies, ils explorent le concept polysemique de « surveillance banalisee ».

The Data Retention Directive, demanding the retention of telecommunications data for a period of six months up to two years, was adopted on 15 March 2006. Since then, this seemingly straightforward directive has generated quite an impressive number of court judgments. They range from the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to the administrative (e.g. Germany and Bulgaria) and constitutional courts (e.g. Romania) of some member states. It is the judgment of the German Constitutional Court, delivered on 2 March 2010, which has particularly caught the attention of commentators: civil society, lawyers, journalists and politicians. In the judgment, the court says 'No' to the German implementation laws of the Data Retention Directive. This paper highlights some of the key features of the ruling and its main similarities and divergences with similar judgments. Given the relevance of the issues at stake, the judgment is then contextualized in the wider framework of EU data processing and protection debates, offering elements of reflection for further discussion.

A growing number of security policies are based on access to, processing and exchange of personal data. Given their nature, most of these measures have an international scope, and they are rooted in international agreements. These agreements usually seek to extend abroad a range of specific, internal security measures. This chapter aims at studying the position of relevant actors and their capacity to increase their power or to quell resistance during the process of extra-territorialisation. The chapter assumes as a hypothesis that the set-up of security policies is readable as a ‘plateau’, a transversal field in which actors’ ability to shape new configurations of actors and fields is a key asset for enhancing their relevance. The research investigates this hypothesis further by taking as a case study the conclusion, in March 2008, of a transatlantic agreement on DNA, fingerprints and personal data exchange between Germany and the US.

The report, Transatlantic Information Sharing: At a Crossroads, describes and analyzes the legal, privacy and data protection frameworks for information-sharing agreements relating to human mobility that enable the United States and the European Union to share such information for law enforcement purposes. It also examines the various informal and formal channels through which the United States and the European Union have discussed their privacy and personal data protection concerns. "In spite of their interest in information sharing and international cooperation in the field of law enforcement more broadly, the United States and the European Union find themselves at a crossroads," said MPI Non-Resident Fellow Susan Ginsburg, who co-authored the report and is a former senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission. "There are significant challenges ahead, but the attempted Christmas Day terrorist attack serves as a reminder of the importance of finalizing a binding agreement that cements U.S. and E.U. informationsharing while respecting legal, institutional and privacy frameworks on both sides of the Atlantic." The report offers several recommendations, among them: The United States and the European Union should work toward negotiating a binding international agreement by setting up a roadmap that would help both sides lay out their goals and steps for diplomatic negotiations, while allowing relevant experts not involved in formal negotiations to offer their input. The U.S. government should consider establishing a central privacy office, helping assure European officials that the United States has an effective privacy watchdog. The United States and the European Union should update their respective privacy and personal data protection laws to reflect current security needs, and clearly define how those laws apply to citizens and noncitizens alike. The U.S. and E.U. governments should regularly provide public evaluations of the effectiveness of information-sharing agreements and the databases thatcollect and process information in stopping known or suspected terrorists and criminals from obtaining visas and entering their respective countries. "The challenge will be for negotiators on both sides of the Atlantic to reconcile their differences on privacy and personal data protection and make changes both domestically and internationally," said MPI Research Assistant Hiroyuki Tanaka, who co-authored the report. The report is available at www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/infosharing-Jan2010.

A growing number of security policies are based on access to and exchange of personal data, frequently with an international scope. While transatlantic measures generally include the EU as a single actor, the last two years have seen a proliferation of bilateral agreements between the US and individual EU member states. These agreements usually seek to extend abroad a range of specific, internal security measures. This paper aims at studying the position of relevant actors and their capacity to increase their power or to quell resistance during the process of extra-territorialisation. The paper assumes as a hypothesis that the set-up of security policies is readable as a plateau, a transversal field in which actors' ability to shape new configurations of actors and fields is a key asset for enhancing their relevance. The research investigates this hypothesis further by taking as a case study the conclusion, in March 2008, of a transatlantic agreement on data exchange between Germany and the US. The text of the agreement mirrors the wording of existing European instruments and thus seems to offer an appropriate occasion to analyse the process of extra-territorialisation of security policies.

Data protection is one of the main issues of the development of the European Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ). Indeed, the introduction of measures that touch upon data protection is coupled with growing dilemmas on how to best ensure individuals' fundamental rights. Is the current legislation on data protection adequate to the challenges posed by specific technologies and specific policies? Do the main actors have the adequate powers to shape legislation and enforce controls? Do the Data Protection Framework Decision and the Lisbon Treaty offer satisfactory means to cope with present loopholes? The scope of this briefing paper is to provide updated background information concerning data protection in the area of freedom, security and justice. In particular, addressing the previous questions should offer an opportunity to discuss present shortcomings, identify best practices and provide recommendations for possible future activities of the LIBE Committee. Therefore, this briefing paper aims at "deconstructing" the system in order to highlight specific shortcomings and current transformations. Part One focuses on the evolution of the European data protection framework on security issues; Part Two discusses powers, competencies and potential evolution of some of the main actors; Part Three recalls current debates on key measures and technologies, and questions their consequences on AFSJ data protection. Finally, conclusions are drawn from the previous sections and recommendations are advanced.

This book review engages with 'Playing the identity card: surveillance, security and identification in global perspective', edited by Colin J. Bennett and David Lyon (London and New York: Routledge, 2008). Nowadays, identification policies are on the top of the national and international agendas. Playing the Identity Card focuses on one of the main identification policies. It looks at ID card policies, with their organizational and technological complexities, as a tool of governance and a field of struggles between actors and powers. No more a mere symbol of sovereignty, both private and public actors suggest that ID documents are the ‘smart’ solution to a wide range of issues and threats (xi–xiii). Surely, the post-9/11 US and UK legislative proposals for ID programs have contributed to directing attention at this specific tool, fostering public debate and scientific research. However, the two editors, among the most prominent scholars of surveillance and privacy protection, have rightly avoided embracing the ‘‘9/11 turn’’ as the sole approach to interpreting developments in the field. Merit has to be given to the book’s comparative approach: fourteen case studies answering three main questions concerning the drivers, system design and lessons learned.

A multitude of new research themes and objects, especially technological innovations and knowledge practices, have come to populate international relations and security politics. Many critical security scholars are engaging theoretical resources from the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) to make sense of things as diverse as fake news, climate change, financial surveillance, digital images and autonomous targeting systems. This Special Issue unpacks the core challenges and benefits we see when engaging with STS to approach the entanglements of science, technology and (in)security. Embracing the notion of trouble, this introduction draws upon Haraway and Butler, arguing for the need to stay close to the troubles that new research objects pose to the study of security. Taking the trouble can thus be understood as an ethos that makes us open to new research avenues and to the importance of being attentive to how relations of power and emancipation can be established in our research processes. The focus of both the introduction and the Special Issue is on how STS resources might be mobilised. Overall, this Special Issue offers further conceptual, empirical and methodological inputs to the ongoing discussion about the value of STS for the study of security politics.

Book review of Helen Nissenbaum's Privacy In Context (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010)

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Following last year's revelations, Edward Snowden seems to be trapped in a role ironically reminiscent of another famous character - George Orwell's Big Brother. From our 'Joining the dots on state surveillance in Europe' series.

Since it first appeared in the 1960s, the legal notion of personal data protection has been living in the shade of the term privacy. Whereas in the United States (US) the regulation of the processing of information related to individuals was solidly framed under the privacy tag as early as the beginning of the 1970s, European legal orders were witnessing the emergence of concurring labels. Eventually, a genuinely European legal construct was to see the light of day: personal data protection, now recognised as a specific fundamental right of the European Union (EU), formally different from any right to privacy.At the core of the construction of the notion of personal data protection there is an attempt to steer clear of the private v. public distinction, on the grounds that the boundary between private and public, as well as any traditional conceptualisations of privacy in terms of intimate or private space, had been rendered inoperative by emerging technologies - concretely, by automated data processing. The notion of personal data protection proposed to structure reality from a different perspective, based on the distinction between personal and non-personal - terms that European data protection laws were soon to define for their own purposes. Almost 50 years after its genesis, European personal data protection still appears to be strikingly intertwined with the evolving notion of privacy. This contribution examines European data protection from the perspective of its relation(s) with privacy, sketching out both the distance between the two notions and their different entanglements. It devotes particular attention to the ongoing review of the EU data protection legal landscape, which seems (finally) to be announcing a formal emancipation of personal data protection from privacy but is at the same time built upon (hidden) references to it. Between claims and silences, privacy thus continues to play a role in the shaping of EU data protection. The importance of such a role is described with the help of Jacques Derrida's insights on the functioning of the word.

In order to provide a clearer idea about the legal frameworks that are relevant for the use of smart surveillance technologies, this chapter first reviews existing laws and principles that are relevant to the use of surveillance technologies in general, focusing in particular on the right to privacy and data protection. Then, these laws and principles are 'applied' or tested to a number of smart surveillance technologies in order to assess their potential intrusiveness into a range of fundamental rights, including due process and non-discrimination. Finally, as legislation in the field of data protection is currently undergoing critical changes, the chapter passes under review the most important developments from the perspective of the impact on, and development of, smart surveillance. Based on this analysis, in its conclusions, the chapter advances some elements for further reflection, inter alia: the crucial role of the principle of data minimization; the growing issue of discrimination; the need to ensure a consistent approach in terms of data protection over private-public surveillance partnership; the somehow paradoxical sidelining of the right to privacy from current legislative developments, in favor of the right to data protection.

La protection des données est l'un des problèmes majeurs que pose le développement d'un espace européen de liberté, de sécurité et de justice (ELSJ). En effet, l'introduction de mesures qui touchent à la protection des données s'accompagne d'interrogations croissantes sur la meilleure manière d'assurer le respect des droits fondamentaux des individus. La législation actuelle sur la protection des données estelle adaptée aux défis posés par des technologies et des politiques très spécifiques ? Les principaux acteurs disposent-ils des pouvoirs adéquats pour aménager la législation et mettre en oeuvre les contrôles nécessaires ? La décision-cadre sur la protection des données et le traité de Lisbonne offrent-ils des moyens satisfaisants pour combler les lacunes actuelles? L'objectif de ce document est de fournir une information contextuelle actualisée en matière de protection des données dans l'espace de liberté, de sécurité et de justice. En particulier,l'examen des questions précitées doit offrir une opportunité d'examiner les carences actuelles, d'identifier les meilleures pratiques et de présenter des recommandations pour de futures activités possibles au sein de la Commission LIBE. Le présent document vise dès lors à "déconstruire" le système pour souligner ses manquements spécifiques et les transformations qu'il subit. La première partie est centrée sur l'évolution du cadre européen de la protection des données sur les questions de sécurité; la deuxième partie traite des pouvoirs, des compétences et de l'évolution potentielle de certains des principaux acteurs; la troisième partie rappelle les débats en cours sur les mesures et les technologies essentielles, et elle s'interroge sur leurs conséquences pour la protection des données dans l'ELSJ. Enfin, des conclusions sont tirées des sections précédentes et des recommandations sont formulées.

Le 8 décembre 2008, la Cour Européenne des Droits de l'Homme (CEDH) a prononcé un arrêt décisif concernant la requête d'effacement des données personnelles (empreintes digitales, échantillons et profils ADN) des deux citoyens britanniques S. et Marper, conservées dans les banques des données de la police. La conservation illimitée des données de personnes non condamnées est reconnue comme une violation du droit à la protection de la vie privée. Or, compte tenu du système technologique mobilisé et des pratiques policières dont il est question, l'arrêt devient encore plus important car il fixe des limites à la « simple conservation » des données privées et en souligne le caractère stigmatisant. Ainsi, la CEDH paraît identifier une possibilité de limiter les effets de la surveillance, aussi « soft » ou « smart » soit-elle.

Surveillance is becoming ubiquitous in our society. We can also see the emergence of "smart" surveillance technologies and the assemblages (or combinations) of such technologies, supposedly to combat crime and terrorism, but in fact used for a variety of purposes, many of which are intrusive upon the privacy of law-abiding citizens. Following the dark days of 9/11, security and surveillance became paramount. More recently, in Europe, there has been a policy commitment to restore privacy to centre stage. This paper examines the legal tools available to ensure that privacy and personal data protection are respected in attempts to ensure the security of our society, and finds that improvements are needed in our legal and regulatory framework if privacy is indeed to be respected by law enforcement authorities and intelligence agencies. It then goes on to argue that privacy impact assessments should be used to sort out the necessity and proportionality of security and surveillance programmes and policies vis - vis privacy. © 2010 Hogan Lovells. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Since its adoption on 15th March 2006, the Data Retention Directive and its national applications have "generated" a quite impressive amount of courts' judgments: ranging from the ECJ to the administrative (e.g. Germany and Bulgaria) and constitutional courts of some Member States. However, the judgment of the German Constitutional Court, delivered three weeks ago, on the 2nd March 2010, is already at the centre of the attention of several commentators, from civil society to lawyers, from journalists to politicians. In the judgment, the Court says no to German implementation laws of the Data Retention Directive (2006/24/EC), demanding telecommunication data retention from 6 months till 2 years. In this post we want to highlight some of the main features of the ruling and then contextualize the judgment in the wider framework of EU data processing and protection debates.

Resumen: Desde sus inicios en los años 60, el concepto legal de protección de datos ha estado a la sombra del término privacidad. En los Estados Unidos (EEUU) la regulación del procesamiento de la información relativa a los individuos se estableció de manera sólida en el marco de la privacidad, ya a principios de los años 70. En Europa, a pesar de compartir preocupaciones parecidas con los EEUU, los ordenamientos jurídicos fueron testigos, en ese mismo momento, de la aparición de varios términos concluyentes y dispares. Finalmente, surgió una estructura legal genuinamente europea: la protección de datos de carácter personal que se reconoce ahora como un derecho fundamental en la Unión Europea (UE), parcialmente inspirada en la privacidad (informacional), y que es formalmente diferente a cualquier derecho a la propia privacidad o al "respeto a la vida privada" en cualquiera de sus significados. Sorprendentemente, casi 50 años después de su génesis, la protección de datos personales en Europa aparece todavía entrelazada con la noción de privacidad, incluso estando en constante evolución. Este artículo analiza la protección de datos en Europa desde esta perspectiva, esbozando sus relaciones con las formas variables de privacidad, las distancias entre ambas nociones, así como sus diferentes conexiones y entresijos. Prestamos especial atención a la revisión, actualmente en curso, del entorno legal de la protección de datos en la UE; ésta parece (finalmente) anunciar la emancipación formal de la protección de datos personales de la privacidad, pero al mismo tiempo se elabora sobre referencias (ocultas) ella. Por lo tanto, aun teniendo en cuenta tanto las consideraciones como las omisiones intermedias, la privacidad juega todavía un papel continuado en la definición de la estructura de la protección de datos en la UE. La importancia de este papel se describe con ayuda de las reflexiones de Jacques Derrida sobre las implicaciones de dicho término. Palabras clave: Datos personales, privacidad, protección de datos, leyes, Unión Europea. Nota del editor: Una vez publicado el artículo, sus autores se pusieron en contacto con nosotros debido a que consideraban que la traducción del título no había sido la más adecuada (no así con el resto de la traducción la cual consideraban correcta). Efectivamente, el título del original del artículo en inglés es "European data protection and the haunting presence of privacy" y la palabra "haunting" está inspirada en las citas del filósofo francés Jacques Derrida que aparecen en el artículo. Derrida no otorga a la palabra "haunting" las connotaciones negativas que podrían derivarse de nuestra traducción por "inquietante" y por lo tanto los autores hacen constar que una mejor traducción del título del artículo hubiera sido "La protección de datos en Europa y la persistente huella de la privacidad". Agradecemos a los autores esta precisión que nos aportan y les pedimos disculpas por las molestias ocasionadas.