Screening in or out? Surveillance of unwanted humanity across the EU

Abstract

Abstract Routinised surveillance systems are generally regarded as public (and corporate) interference in the privacy of citizens. Yet such comprehensive forms of surveillance intervention can be a counterpart of citizenship rights, and even of the ‘right to have rights’ within EU cities today. This paper is about selective surveillance, here termed screening out, of undocumented people and how it operates inside EU cities today. A 2002 EU Directive on “Strengthening the Penal Framework to Prevent the Facilitation of Unauthorised Entry, Transit and Residence” underpins coercive policies designed to exclude ‘unwanted humanity’ from the realm of rights-bearing residents within EU urban spaces. Through individual narrative and a range of evidence, the article shows how selective surveillance screens out unwanted humanity from exercising their rights within EU urban spaces. The key aim is to expose the deliberate governmental use of selective surveillance – to disable and prohibit the access of some people to local resources and urban services vital for a basic decent minimum level of life. The logic of deterrence strategies underpin screening out and create non-persons, including failed asylum seekers who are the main focus of this article. Without comprehensive data collection, there is little oversight possible and intervention is lacking which might improve the life chances of undocumented people who live in cities of the EU. Destitution, detention and deportation are the 3-Ds that mean the most basic social and civil rights of undocumented people are routinely neglected. Public institutions, including medical authorities, local authorities and even charities, have become points of exclusion for the unwanted. Little is known about their health conditions or needs, with the exception of some NGO and academic studies on small samples. Redefined across most EU cities as ‘unwanted humanity’, undocumented people and those campaigning on their behalf are increasingly a legitimate ‘target group’ for violent forms of privatised security. Selective surveillance – or screening out - is thus a strong indicator of unwantedness, as shown with some examples from UK, Dutch and French cities. Comprehensive surveillance could be viewed as a public good, so long as it is applied in a non-selective manner.