The reform of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS), in effect since June 2026, is further digitising Europe’s migration policies. At the external borders, new screening procedures capture biometric data from asylum seekers within a matter of days, from as early as 6 years of age. Fingerprints, facial images, names, ages and nationalities are stored in databases, cross-referenced and made available across national borders. 

Cameras with facial recognition, biometric capture systems, sensors and drones are designed to track movements, document border crossings and “make migration manageable”. The border is thus increasingly becoming a digital infrastructure comprising data, algorithms and surveillance technologies.

Behind this development lie political decisions and a multi-billion market for security and border technologies. But what  happens when the technologies introduced in the name of security become a source of insecurity themselves? And when algorithmic errors, discrimination, data breaches or abuses of power occur, who is held accountable? 

Yet borders are not only becoming digital infrastructures. Across Europe's eastern frontier, they are also becoming physical infrastructures of walls, fences, sensors and exclusion zones that reshape forests, migration routes and ecosystems. While states seek to control human mobility through technology and militarisation, animals, diseases, water systems and environmental processes continue to move across borders, exposing the limits of technological control.

In this panel discussion, Austrian migration researcher Judith Kohlenberger, Research Institute for Migration and Forced Displacement Management (FORM) at WU Vienna  will map the main changes under CEAS, Polish journalist and human rights activist Anna Alboth will draw on her recent investigation along Europe's eastern frontier, from Finland through the Baltic states to Poland, exploring how new border infrastructures designed to stop migration are also reshaping forests, wildlife corridors and local ecosystems and German journalist Franziska Grillmeier, based on the island of Lesvos, will discuss recent developments around the Aegean. 

Europe's new borders are not only laboratories for surveillance technologies, they are also large-scale experiments in reshaping landscapes and ecosystems.

The discussion will focus on what alternatives to expanded surveillance can look like. Can security, accountability and fairness be brought into balance and if so, how can we all advocate for it? 

Is the protection of human rights, data sovereignty and ecological integrity at the border a mere utopia, or are they necessary preconditions for democratic societies that seek security without sacrificing their fundamental values?