Transnational Biosurveillance and Criminalization across Borders

The expansion of transnational biosurveillance generated by continuous innovations in the field of databasing and genetics are becoming important pieces in security policies at a global scale. In this paper, we analyse the empirical case of the large-scale exchange of DNA data between different jurisdictions in the European Union. Our analysis is based on interviews conducted in different countries with professionals working in the field of the fight against organized crime, terrorism and the so-called illegal migration. We focus in particular on the actual and expected uses of biotechnologies that allow searching for criminal suspects on the basis of DNA profiles, such as DNA databasing and forensic DNA phenotyping. Our aim is to understand the multiple forms of sense making deployed in the narratives of the experts involved in operations of police and judiciary cooperation among EU countries. We focus on processes of criminalization of mobility across borders by inquiring the narratives of these professionals of surveillance through the following questions: What makes data travel through different jurisdictions? Which particular territorial borders and specific social groups are considered “risky” and deserving more intensive and extensive forms of biosurveillance? Which hopes and concerns emerge towards different biotechnologies and their application in the fight against criminality? The paper concludes by pointing out how social boundaries and territorial borders are continuously re-created through particular forms of criminalisation of certain social groups and intersections between expectations towards different biotechnologies.