Risk communications are a global activity, where information and communication technologies play a vital role in keeping track of global flows of people, money and commodities. Today, a central element in controlling the increasingly mobile populations is the existence of a number of information systems, such as the systems in the so-called Schengen agreement. The objective of this project is to examine the control of global flows of people, particularly in the case of border controls. Furthermore, the project seeks to examine the focus on ethnicity and religious affiliation as possible indicators of risk and danger. The objective of the project is to see how ethnic and religious identity is constituted within the discourse of police databases. What kind of knowledge about ethnic and racial groups do they provide to the police and society in general? Police have a long tradition of ethnic related activities, however, the events of September 11 th and the consequent ”war on terrorism” has brought an additional salience to ethnicity and religious affiliation as perceived risk factors. Ethnicity-related risk communication opens a number of ethical dilemmas that needs to be explored.
The project will focus on the technological and cultural aspects of police communication about ethnic groups. How is identity constructed in the police discourses? How is it communicated within the system and to the public? Furthermore, how do databases as technological tools and as specific discourse situations influence the process of identity constitution? A number of analysts have pointed out the distinct ontological qualities of databases and their specific relevance for the issues of identity constitution (Poster 1990). The objective of the project will be to examine police databases as socially and culturally embedded tools, as well as their subsequent social and cultural impact on the public perception of ethnicity.
The project is in a number of aspects a continuation of my doctoral thesis “From Faust to Macintosh: Sentencing in the Age of Information”, in the sense that it examines the issues of information and communication technologies and identity constitution. The project also seeks to examine the issue of biometric identification and the forthcoming implementation of biometric passports.