March 7, 2026
Nora Dezsènyi
Drone Surveillance and Biometric Identification: Italy’s AI Turn in the Securitisation of Border Migration Management.
Over the past decade, Italian political, economic, and institutional actors have transformed migration from a humanitarian issue into a security issue, both through discourse and through concrete practices. This type of rhetoric has been defined as ‘securitisation’, namely, the process through which state and non-state actors construct a political or social issue as an existential security threat that requires exceptional measures, causing extremely harmful consequences. Within the context of migration, securitisation theory discusses how governments, international institutions, political elites, and economic actors construct migration as a threat to a country’s national sovereignty, to people’s collective identity and culture, and to public safety.
With the increasing importance of technological tools and Artificial Intelligence in the realm of migration management, understanding the role that technology plays in securitisation is particularly important to analyse today. Although political and economic actors often state that technological instruments are being used for humanitarian purposes in objective and neutral ways, Italian authorities have been found to use them as tools of control and fear, thereby contributing to the marginalisation and criminalisation of migrants, the normalisation of extraordinary security measures, and to the spiralling of already existing security practices.
Between 2020 and 2025, and particularly under the Meloni administration that began in 2022, Italy has been led by right-wing governments that have intensified the use of surveillance technologies in its migration management approaches. Led by Meloni’s political party, Fratelli d’Italia, the government’s agenda has focused on preventing irregular migration and criminalising both migrants and the humanitarian actors supporting them.
From a political perspective, the framing of migration as a security threat enables populist politicians to use migrants as scapegoats and invoke sentiments of fear amongst the public regarding national identity and safety. Renowned scholar Didier Bigo argues that security is not simply declared by elite actors, but is constructed by a network of professionals whose daily practices embed a securitising logic within countries. These actors perform securitisation not only to tackle what they deem to be threats, but also to justify their own relevance, grow their resources and profits, and gain institutional power.
Since 2020, Italy has expanded its use of drone surveillance technologies, both through its own national investments and also through its collaboration with Frontex. For example, the Italian Ministry of the Interior provided 7.2 million euros for the operation of drones in the central Mediterranean in 2020. Italy is using technology to securitise its borders: by using drones, the country is facilitating interception operations that deter, control, and contain migrants in a systemic and routine manner.
A significant way in which aerial drones contribute to the securitisation of migration is through the process of externalisation, namely, the process through which migration management is expanded beyond Italy’s borders, and often, ‘delegated’ to the country of origin. For example, evidence from investigations conducted by NGOs reveal that drones operated by Frontex frequently transmit distress signals and migrant sightings not to humanitarian rescue organisations but to Libyan and Tunisian coast guards. Indeed, despite international law, such as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), compelling countries to transmit information about migrant boats in danger to the nearest rescue centres, both Italian authorities and Frontex have routinely given the information collected from drones to other countries, such as Libya. As a result of this externalising approach, migrants have been consistently intercepted, detained, and forcibly returned to countries in which they face repression and abuse. These practices transform maritime areas into zones of securitisation, militarisation and exclusion, extending and expanding Italy’s control while harming and endangering migrants.
Aerial drones are contributing to the legitimisation and normalisation of security practices because they frame migrants as potentially dangerous individuals that need to be monitored, controlled and deterred from migrating constantly.
This characteristic of the Italian migration management ecosystem fully aligns what Didier Bigo’s described as the “governmentality of unease”, where migration is not framed as an urgent threat through explicit crises, but rather, through ongoing low-level risks.
Migration management becomes characterised by a constant sense of suspicion and fear, in which it is bureaucratic and systematic routines, rather than emergency declarations, that operationalise security and guide migration policy. Ultimately, surveillance drones contribute to a securitised system that institutionalises technologies of control as core elements of Italian migration management. Drones are constantly identifying, monitoring, and deterring migration, and this process is embedding a securitised logic in a mundane and bureaucratic manner.
Alongside aerial drones, over the past few years, biometric identification systems have also become increasingly important for Italy’s migration management, being utilised at Italy’s borders and in hotspots such as Lampedusa. According to the IOM, biometrics are “Automated means of identifying an individual through the measurement of distinguishing physiological or behavioural traits such as fingerprints, face, iris, retina or ear features.” The collection and consequent analysis of biometric data are often justified by state authorities as processes that are needed for administrative neutrality and bureaucratic efficiency for identity verification and public security reasons. However, when assessed through the lens of securitisation, it is evident that in Italy, and similarly in other countries, their purpose is largely to embed security logics within migration management systems. Indeed, migrants’ biometric data is often used by states to frame them as suspicious individuals, and consequently, to normalise and legitimise their surveillance and marginalisation.
At the national level, Italy has integrated biometric data within two main systems: Italy’s Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) and Sistema Automatico di Riconoscimento Immagini (SARI), the former being a fingerprint database and the latter being a facial recognition database. The gathering of biometric data reshapes migration as a security issue that must be anticipated and managed through algorithms, effectively entrenching securitisation within technologies used by state authorities. Invasive identification procedures, particularly when utilized to gather biometric data on vulnerable individuals, can often amplify their marginalisation and exclusion, perpetuate harmful stereotypes, and result in unlawful profiling. While framed as neutral tools needed for efficient administrative and public safety procedures, these surveillance technologies frequently discriminate against individuals based on ethnicity and nationality, heightening pre-existing inequalities.
These findings reflect broader trends across Europe and the world. Countries are increasingly relying on technology to securitise, and this pattern is contributing to a spiraling cycle in which heightened security measures are leading to amplified exclusion, public anxiety, and consequently, further securitisation. Without urgent and large-scale intervention, this vicious cycle may continue to escalate, with serious consequences for both migrants and societies globally. The militarisation of border control, the rise of political extremism, social polarisation, and the alienation of migrants are all phenomena that emphasise the harmful aspects of securitisation. As the digital age continues to shape security and migration, techno-securitisation is only expected to exacerbate these harmful dynamics. Without pro-active measures towards de-securitisation, surveillance technologies will continue reinforcing detrimental exclusionary practices and control and containment mechanisms.