Not interesting enough to be followed by the NSA: An analysis of Dutch privacy attitudes

Open curtains and a careless attitude. The Dutch are described as holding an indifferent stance towards privacy in the aftermath of Snowden’s revelations of far-reaching government surveillance. But are Dutch reactions as aloof as often claimed? This study provides an in-depth overview of privacy attitudes in the Dutch debate about the National Security Agency (NSA) leaks, showing a greater variety of sentiments than anticipated. A qualitative frame analysis and a quantitative descriptive analysis resulted in six frames, which convey distinct privacy attitudes. Online and offline as well as professional and non-journalistic content in the debate displays a different distribution of frames. The frames, ranging from an “End justifies the means” attitude to an anxious fear of an “Orwellian dystopia”, are placed in a larger framework as the research demonstrates the connection to existing theories about privacy and surveillance. Dutch discussions about the NSA revelations often display a trade-off narrative balancing safety against privacy, and include (de)legitimisation strategies. These outcomes are in line with previous studies about mediated surveillance debates, which indicates that privacy attitudes transcend national boundaries. However, the inclusion of user-generated content adds an individual dimension to the existing body of research and reveals a personal perspective on surveillance issues

Le corps biométrique : différences corporelles, normes intégrées et classifications automatisées

Les recherches ayant permis la rédaction de cet article ont été en partie financées par le Conseil européen de la recherche et la Commission européenne, via les projets DigIDeas (contrat de subvention eRC 201853) et HIDe (contrat de subvention eC 217762) s’inscrivant dans le Septième programme-cadre européen de recherche (FP7/2007-2013). Alors que la biométrie est généralement comprise comme s’appuyant sur « le » corps humain, dont elle utilise certaines caractéristiques à des fins d’authenti..

Migrants at/as risk: Identity verification and risk assessment technologies in the Netherlands

International policy discourse on migration and practices geared toward the sorting out of entitlements for migrants to enter and reside in a country mobilize a discourse that increasingly frames them as posing risks to the societies of their host countries (Leers, 2012; Leers, 2011), notwithstanding the fact that only a small minority of migrants are associated with criminal offences, e.g., organized crime, illegal entry, human trafficking, or terrorism. In the main, migrants with refugee or asylum seeker status, as well as those seeking this designation, arrive as a consequence of wars, natural disasters, political or economic unrest, human trafficking, international crime, or a combination thereof. These immigrants can be regarded as being at risk. Although technological systems of migration and border control are generally installed to prevent threats to a country’s inhabitants, including threats associated with migrants, countries also have the obligation to assist and protect vulnerable migrants. Today, the perspective on migrants as vulnerable and at risk seems to lose traction. This chapter discusses how immigrants and travellers are increasingly framed as posing a risk to the Netherlands. More specifically, we analyse the way that modes of prevention (Bigo & Guild, 2005; Broeders, 2009), and their associated risk assessment systems have come to focus on translating specific problems around migrants into problems of identity fraud, illegal entry and illegal residence. The ways in which these problems are defined and managed has drawn attention towards improving the establishment and the management of ‘identity’ . These identification and identity verification practices have ethical implications because they may be instrumental in discriminative exclusion and inclusion. For this reason, we focus in particular on two identification and one risk assessment practice performed by Dutch border control, migration and law enforcement agencies. The first system is the identification and verification console of the Dutch Immigration and Naturalisation Service, the INS console, the second is part of the information provision program (in Dutch: Programma Informatievoorziening Strafrechtsketen) within the Dutch criminal law chain, called PROGIS console. The third is the Advanced Passenger Information system (henceforth: API). Although they differ significantly, as they are situated in different practices and operated for different purposes, this chapter aims to articulate some shared characteristics and implications of their use. We suggest that all these systems contribute to a shift that increasingly frames migrants as posing a risk, as opposed to potentially being at risk. Moreover, we aim to show how the quest for ‘accurate identity’, and the technologies used to approach this goal, transform the problem in specific ways, and, in the process, create new uncertainties and risks for those subjected to them. We argue that this happens because of the particular way problems of identity fraud and illegal entry are translated (Latour, 1987) into specific technological solutions. To illustrate this dynamic, in section two the systems will be described and how identity verification of certain categories of migrants and risk profiling of travellers is enabled by these systems. Section three discusses how the ‘accuracy of identity’ and an accurate ‘risk profile’ are produced, by focusing on the development of ‘risk indicators’. The fourth section identifies a number of pitfalls in the socio-technical production of ‘identity’, and ‘risk’ by looking deeper into the functioning of these systems in practice. The analysis is based on empirical data gathered from professionals using these systems and is guided by actor-network theory (Akrich, 1992; Latour, 1987) and a material-semiotics informed approach (Law, 2009)

Securing Identities: Biometric Technologies and the Enactment of Human Bodily Differences

Worldwide, biometrics are quickly becoming the preferred solution to a wide range of problems involving identity checking. Biometrics are claimed to provide more secure identification and verification, because ‘the body does not lie.’ Yet, every biometric check consists of a process with many intermediate steps, introducing contingency and choice on many levels. In addition, there are underlying normative assumptions regarding human bodies that affect the functioning of biometric systems in highly problematic ways. In recent social science studies, the failures of biometric systems have been interpreted as gendered and racialized biases. A more nuanced understanding of how biometrics and bodily differences intersect draws attention to how bodily differences are produced, used, and problematized during the research and design phases of biometric systems, as well as in their use. In technical engineering research, issues of biometrics’ performance and human differences are already transformed into R&D challenges in variously more and less problematic ways. In daily practices of border control, system operators engage in workarounds to make the technology work well with a wide range of users. This shows that claims about ‘inherent whiteness’ of biometrics should be adjusted: relationships between biometric technologies, gender and ethnicity are emergent, multiple and complex. Moreover, from the viewpoint of theorizing gender and ethnicity, biometrics’ difficulties in correctly recognising pre-defined categories of gender or ethnicity may be less significant than its involvement in producing and enacting (new) gender and ethnic classifications and identities

Securing Identities: Biometric Technologies and the Enactment of Human Bodily Differences

Worldwide, biometrics are quickly becoming the preferred solution to a wide range of problems involving identity checking. Biometrics are claimed to provide more secure identification and verification, because ‘the body does not lie.’ Yet, every biometric check consists of a process with many intermediate steps, introducing contingency and choice on many levels. In addition, there are underlying normative assumptions regarding human bodies that affect the functioning of biometric systems in highly problematic ways. In recent social science studies, the failures of biometric systems have been interpreted as gendered and racialized biases. A more nuanced understanding of how biometrics and bodily differences intersect draws attention to how bodily differences are produced, used, and problematized during the research and design phases of biometric systems, as well as in their use. In technical engineering research, issues of biometrics’ performance and human differences are already transformed into R&D challenges in variously more and less problematic ways. In daily practices of border control, system operators engage in workarounds to make the technology work well with a wide range of users. This shows that claims about ‘inherent whiteness’ of biometrics should be adjusted: relationships between biometric technologies, gender and ethnicity are emergent, multiple and complex. Moreover, from the viewpoint of theorizing gender and ethnicity, biometrics’ difficulties in correctly recognising pre-defined categories of gender or ethnicity may be less significant than its involvement in producing and enacting (new) gender and ethnic classifications and identities.</p

Migrants at/as risk:Identity verification and risk assessment technologies in the Netherlands

International policy discourse on migration and practices geared toward the sorting out of entitlements for migrants to enter and reside in a country mobilize a discourse that increasingly frames them as posing risks to the societies of their host countries (Leers, 2012; Leers, 2011), notwithstanding the fact that only a small minority of migrants are associated with criminal offences, e.g., organized crime, illegal entry, human trafficking, or terrorism. In the main, migrants with refugee or asylum seeker status, as well as those seeking this designation, arrive as a consequence of wars, natural disasters, political or economic unrest, human trafficking, international crime, or a combination thereof. These immigrants can be regarded as being at risk. Although technological systems of migration and border control are generally installed to prevent threats to a country’s inhabitants, including threats associated with migrants, countries also have the obligation to assist and protect vulnerable migrants. Today, the perspective on migrants as vulnerable and at risk seems to lose traction. This chapter discusses how immigrants and travellers are increasingly framed as posing a risk to the Netherlands. More specifically, we analyse the way that modes of prevention (Bigo &amp; Guild, 2005; Broeders, 2009), and their associated risk assessment systems have come to focus on translating specific problems around migrants into problems of identity fraud, illegal entry and illegal residence. The ways in which these problems are defined and managed has drawn attention towards improving the establishment and the management of ‘identity’ . These identification and identity verification practices have ethical implications because they may be instrumental in discriminative exclusion and inclusion. For this reason, we focus in particular on two identification and one risk assessment practice performed by Dutch border control, migration and law enforcement agencies. The first system is the identification and verification console of the Dutch Immigration and Naturalisation Service, the INS console, the second is part of the information provision program (in Dutch: Programma Informatievoorziening Strafrechtsketen) within the Dutch criminal law chain, called PROGIS console. The third is the Advanced Passenger Information system (henceforth: API). Although they differ significantly, as they are situated in different practices and operated for different purposes, this chapter aims to articulate some shared characteristics and implications of their use. We suggest that all these systems contribute to a shift that increasingly frames migrants as posing a risk, as opposed to potentially being at risk. Moreover, we aim to show how the quest for ‘accurate identity’, and the technologies used to approach this goal, transform the problem in specific ways, and, in the process, create new uncertainties and risks for those subjected to them. We argue that this happens because of the particular way problems of identity fraud and illegal entry are translated (Latour, 1987) into specific technological solutions. To illustrate this dynamic, in section two the systems will be described and how identity verification of certain categories of migrants and risk profiling of travellers is enabled by these systems. Section three discusses how the ‘accuracy of identity’ and an accurate ‘risk profile’ are produced, by focusing on the development of ‘risk indicators’. The fourth section identifies a number of pitfalls in the socio-technical production of ‘identity’, and ‘risk’ by looking deeper into the functioning of these systems in practice. The analysis is based on empirical data gathered from professionals using these systems and is guided by actor-network theory (Akrich, 1992; Latour, 1987) and a material-semiotics informed approach (Law, 2009)

L’individualité féminine à l’épreuve des technologies de reproduction

This article is concerned with the emergence of two new types of patients in the medical reproductive technologies of IVF and prenatal surgery, the couple and the fetus. It argues that the conception of couples and fetuses as singular treatable patients is closely connected to the development of particular technologies. But these unconventional practices, that mix up the distinction between the technological and the natural as well as the distinction between one individual and another, are accompanied by specific discursive mechanisms that render the treatment of male problems and children's problems through women's bodies acceptable, or even natural and biologically inevitable. This paper is devoted to the analysis and deconstruction of such mechanisms.Cet article décrit l’émergence de deux nouveaux types de patients, le couple et le fœtus, dans certaines techniques reproductives telles la fécondation in vitro et la chirurgie fœtale. Il montre comment l’émergence de ces patients, comme des entités traitables, est liée au développement de ces technologies. Ces pratiques médicales effacent en partie les distinctions entre le naturel et le technique, entre un individu et un autre, et sont accompagnées de dispositifs discursifs spécifiques qui rendent acceptable, voire même naturel ou inévitable le fait de traiter les problèmes de l’enfant ou de l’homme au moyen d’interventions sur le corps de la femme. Cet article est consacré à l’analyse et à la déconstruction de ces dispositifs.Van der Ploeg Irma, Akrich Madeleine, Le Doaré Hélène. L’individualité féminine à l’épreuve des technologies de reproduction. In: Cahiers du Genre, N°25, 1999. De la contraception à l'enfantement. L'offre technologique en question. pp. 95-121