I want to use this opportunity to briefly summarize our discussion until now, and provide some lasting examples, to contribute to my overall argument. In this book, I have examined the use of surveillance technologies in migration, border management and humanitarian aid, with the aim of explaining contemporary capitalism’s mainstream approach to migration at a global level and the motivations behind the investments of tech companies in these fields. What is critical here is that the development and implementation of surveillance technologies in migration and border management have repercussions that extend far beyond these fields. Given the far-reaching effects of these technologies – encompassing lie detection and military robotics, and the prediction and prevention of mass movements – it is evident that they will soon have consequences for humanity as a whole.

In gaining an understanding of this potential, we also recognize that this topic is directly related to the evolution and future of global capitalism, and that surveillance capitalism is not simply a business model. The capabilities provided by these surveillance technologies and their use for mass surveillance have become an intrinsic component of contemporary capitalism and are actively tested on people on the move.

This process is led by an oligarchic structure based on close cooperation between the security, intelligence and financial bureaucracies of a small number of advanced capitalist countries and a small number of tech producers, military organizations and financial companies. Donor countries provide funding in the name of humanitarian aid, and, through academic projects or research and development, new and usually speculative surveillance technologies are developed using this public money. These are then tested on migrants and refugees in different countries by security bureaucracies or various organizations such as UN agencies, and products found to be successful and effective are commercialized and marketed to different states. The reason I refer to this as an oligarchic structure is that there is a network of people operating on different platforms in a small number of countries, including the US, EU, UK and Israel, who work together, share their experiences and frequently move among companies, and the decisions made by this network are implemented at a global level.

There is a large body of literature on the relationship between capitalism and migration. Structuralist, Marxist and Marxist-influenced theories examine migration from different perspectives, but mainly in terms of exploitation and relations of dependency; analyses that were particularly popular in the 1970s but remain relevant. There are many studies on how capitalism uses migrants as a labour force to increase surplus-value extraction and to lower wages, and on the tactics used by labour unions to organize migrants in different countries. Similarly, many studies deal with the consequences of migration, both for origin and destination countries (from ‘developing’ countries to ‘developed’ capitalist countries), the effects of remittances, the issue of brain drain and continuing colonial ties and racism. There is also an extensive number of studies that adopt a gender approach, for example the migration of women – particularly from countries such as the Philippines and Ethiopia – to work in domestic services, conditions of modern slavery, and the supply chain of care for children and the elderly at the global level (such as scenarios where a Filipino mother looks after the child of a middleclass German mother, whereas the Filipino mother’s child is looked after by another woman in her country of origin). Moreover, some studies examine the precarious working conditions faced by migrants to capitalist countries, and migrations among the emerging and more economically dependent countries called the Global South. Overall, these studies analyse the approach adopted by capitalism to migration – of labour, in particular – in different periods and countries (Zelinsky, 1971; Amin, 1974; Gilroy, 1993; Escobar, 1995; Anderson, 2000; Arango, 2000; Bigo, 2002; Creswell, 2006; Castles and Wise, 2007; Raghuram, 2009; Castles, 2010; Gardner, 2011; Cabanes and Acedera, 2012; Browne, 2015; Massey, 2015; Francisco, 2018).

In this chapter, I will make use of the accumulated findings and analyses of this literature, but I will not limit myself to the consequences of capitalist policies in the field of migration; I will also argue, making references to the surveillance technologies developed, that migration and border management policies and practices provide valuable data on the internal evolution and trajectory of capitalism.

The analysis of (big) data has exciting potential in the fields of migration and border management and humanitarian emergencies, as in many other fields. The reason I place ‘big’ in parentheses is that the definition of big data keeps expanding in quantitative terms. Therefore, it might be sufficient to simply talk about data analysis. Two issues make data analysis especially valuable. First, data sets that are too large for humans to analyse unassisted can be evaluated using AI algorithms thanks to advanced statistical applications. Second, with advances in cloud storage, it becomes possible to hold and use large data sets, without data going to waste.

What makes this analysis exciting, specifically for the issue at hand, is that inferences made from data sets allow us to analyse the basic characteristics and dynamics of mass movements and make predictions about the future (Bozçağa and Cansuna, 2022; Gürkan et al, 2022; Solano, 2022; Weber, 2022). The business model of surveillance capitalism, discussed in Chapter 1, is also based on the assumption that similar phenomena, under normal conditions, should lead to similar expectations. This, in turn, offers new opportunities for making projections about migration movements and analysing applicants to cross borders. Examining data from previous applicants and categorizing new applications using this framework make it possible to make judgements about whom to allow to migrate and where.

Capitalist companies’ dominance over big data

The biggest concern, for the purposes of this study, is that a significant portion of the main actors that collect and analyse data from migrants are capitalist companies. States, UN agencies and humanitarian aid organizations also collect data from migrants and refugees, but the field is dominated by a small number of companies. Mobile phone operators, financial firms, digital platforms, social media providers and companies that operate search engines and offer translation and navigation apps collect real-time data from migrants on a continuous basis. Using this data, they offer products and services to practically everyone, regardless of whether they are migrants are not. For example, as a Turkish-speaking migrant in the UK, I am usually shown ads for remittance companies when I use social media or search engines.

Many of the technological solutions that stand out in the field of migration and border management fall within the scope of the tech product package known as ‘smart borders’. These ‘solutions’ make it possible to control activities beyond physical borders and to detect and prevent immigrants before they even reach borders, through such tools as AI algorithms, unmanned aerial vehicles, facial-recognition systems, biometrics, satellite images, sensors and analyses of mobile phone and social media data. For example, Elbit, an Israeli security company that established an advanced surveillance system in Arizona, can detect people approaching the border from 7.5 miles away. The laser-enhanced cameras produced by Anduril, working in the same area, are able to detect all movement within two miles and distinguish human activity from animal activity through the use of artificial intelligence (Feldstein, 2019).

Smart border applications are the most visible examples when it comes to surveillance technologies in the field of border and migration management. The reason why I have discussed big-data analysis before moving on to smart border products is that smart border applications play a prominent role in collecting real-time data on human movements, and thus contribute to the development of surveillance technologies. Flows of real-time data collected using various methods including drones, satellites and sensors, and their analysis in comparison with historical data sets, play a very important role in predicting and preventing human movements and deciding who can be permitted to cross borders.

There are two basic issues involved, which have been discussed in Chapters 1 and 2 as well. The first is the risk that, if the advanced technologies developed here are applied successfully, they might be used to monitor and steer the daily lives of entire societies. I will discuss the pilot use of lie detectors from this perspective. The second issue is that these technologies are developed by military/ arms firms, and the solutions they offer not only violate the basic rights of migrants and refugees by adopting a purely security-oriented approach, but they also militarize borders, contribute to intelligence work concerning other countries, put regional and global peace at risk and reinforce war preparations. They also provide ample opportunities for cooperation between tech companies on the one hand, and military/ arms firms and security bureaucracies, on the other.