Research Director and Senior Researcher, Peace Research Institute Oslo, Norway.
Disasters. 2018 Oct;42(4):674-696. doi: 10.1111/disa.12286. Epub 2018 Mar 5.
The matter of boat migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea, seeking to reach Europe, is interchangeably defined as a 'security issue', requiring stricter border controls, and as a humanitarian issue with corresponding rescue and protection requirements. This paper seeks to understand what role various surveillance technologies, such as radar, satellites, and unmanned aerial vehicles, can play in this respect (legally and technically), in comparison to the role that they are assigned (that is, political expectations). To unravel what surveillance technologies can and cannot do vis-à-vis the aims of control and rescue, there is a need to comprehend what information can be collected and what information is needed to fulfil these objectives. The paper contends that there is a mismatch between the information sought to 'control' borders, but which cannot be gathered effectively by or processed using surveillance technologies, and the valuable information needed to perform rescue operations, which these surveillance technologies can supply.
船民穿越地中海，寻求前往欧洲的问题，被交替定义为一个“安全问题”，需要更严格的边境管制，以及一个具有相应救援和保护要求的人道主义问题。本文旨在探讨各种监控技术（如雷达、卫星和无人机）在这方面（从法律和技术角度）可以发挥什么作用，以及它们所承担的角色（即政治期望）。为了了解监控技术在控制和救援目标方面能做什么和不能做什么，有必要理解可以收集哪些信息以及需要哪些信息来实现这些目标。本文认为，寻求“控制”边界的信息与执行救援行动所需的有价值信息之间存在不匹配，而这些监控技术无法有效地收集或处理前者，而后者则可以提供后者。
