The Algorithmic Borders: AI, Migration Control, and Transatlantic Surveillance Governance in the EU

This thesis examines the transformation of European migration governance through algorithmic and artificial intelligence technologies, situating that transformation within a transatlantic frame of reference. Two research questions guide the analysis. The first asks how algorithmic governance is reshaping migration control in the European Union. The second asks to what extent the transatlantic diffusion of private surveillance infrastructures — most prominently those developed by Palantir Technologies — challenges the capacity of EU law to protect the fundamental rights of persons subjected to those systems. Here, Palantir functions throughout the analysis as a litmus test rather: the European cases examined are assessed for how closely they approach the structural preconditions of the American case. The thesis holds that algorithmic governance is transforming migration control by relocating the site at which control is exercised, from the visible and contestable administrative decision to an infrastructure that is largely invisible and, in practice, uncontestable; and that the transatlantic diffusion of private surveillance infrastructures challenges EU law's capacity to protect fundamental rights beyond the migratory context, risk extending to the rights of the European citizens. In this sense, the EU legal framework should be used to limit.