Mobility Should be Fun. A Consumer (Law) Perspective on Border Check Technology

This paper invites us to rescue the debates over the use of border check technologies from the twin paradoxes of "excessive visibility" and "low visibility". With this aim, it stresses the importance of considering border check technologies from a consumer perspective. From this point of view, it questions the modes of implementation of some of the most relevant technologies already operating at the borders: body scanners, biometrics, registered travellers' programs, and passenger name records. Finally, the authors propose to combine insights and solutions of both consumer and data protection law, to offer travellers a more "consumer friendly" approach to border check technologies. Such a move would probably pave the way to citizens' debates freed from the "visibility" paradoxes of technology.