The ABC of Border Control at Europe’s Edges: Views of Political Stakeholders on Automated Border Control Systems in Finland, Romania, Spain and the United Kingdom

In this paper we examine the political acceptability of automated border control (ABC) systems by means of Q methodology. Pressures to process growing passenger volumes securely at the European Union’s (EU) borders are increasing which has led to interest in automating and harmonising border control processes. We research the political, legal, and socio-ethical aspects of ABC in the European Commission funded FastPass project which develops solutions for ABC in the EU. We focus on political stakeholders’ views due to their key role in the process; the decisions to acquire ABC gates and software are taken by national parliaments. Our objective is to grasp the views of political stakeholders regarding the development of ABC systems, including potential commonalities among these views, upon which European ABC should build. We utilise Q methodology to systematically compare the views of 44 political stakeholders in Finland, Romania, Spain and the United Kingdom. These cases cover Member States with different border challenges and diverse degrees of ABC institutionalisation. The participants representing 18 political parties include 20 Members of Parliament inter alia. We reach the solution of three distinct factors. The first factor or view is composed mainly of the political left, centre-left, and green party participants and it emphasises protecting passengers’ right to privacy. The second view consists predominantly of conservative and centre-right participants and welcomes regulated, harmonised ABC as a good investment and an enhancement in security. The third view comprised of Euro-sceptic, right-wing populist participants is worried about increasing immigration and wants to preserve national sovereignty in organising border control. The participants agree overall on demanding transparency and data minimisation, accessibility, democratic legitimacy, monitoring mechanisms, and a legal foundation from the forthcoming ABC systems. We conclude by discussing the implications of the findings to politically sustainable ABC systems in the EU.