Biometric Algorithms as Border Infrastructures

Abstract

Abstract Looking at the work performed by infrastructures when they become part and parcel of the security governance, in this paper, I contend that a closer look must be paid to the infrastructural context of emergence and possibility of algorithms applied in “smart border technologies”. I focus on the explanatory and productive power of an analytical concept derived from the practice: the “security/mobility nexus”, which refers to the stitching of security to mobility to make governance possible. I illustrate how through the security/mobility nexus the Canadian State has capitalized on the promises of infrastructures–such as biometric algorithms–to innovate and deploy the affordance power of the digital to connect people’s data to spaces and physical sites. To analytically reflect on how it comes to mediate bodies as a “border infrastructure” with the security/mobility nexus, I first focus on the algorithmic mediation before turning to the biometric imaginary and its limits.