Interoperability and the multiple modes of ordering in Europe's digital border regime

Trauttmansdorff, Paul; Loschi, Chiara Article — Published Version Interoperability and the multiple modes of ordering in Europe's digital border regime International Migration Provided in Cooperation with: John Wiley & Sons Suggested Citation: Trauttmansdorff, Paul; Loschi, Chiara (2025) : Interoperability and the multiple modes of ordering in Europe's digital border regime, International Migration, ISSN 1468-2435, Wiley, Hoboken, NJ, Vol. 63, Iss. 3, https://doi.org/10.1111/imig.70022 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/319276 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your personal and scholarly purposes. You are not to copy documents for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ International Migration. 2025;63:e70022. | 1 of 17 https://doi.org/10.1111/imig.70022 wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/imig INTRODUCTION Data have become essential prerequisites for overseeing and extracting value from crossborder mobilities. Over the past two decades, the worldwide push in digitizing border and migration governance has led to the construction of databases containing personal and biometric information of travellers. Originating from the realm of Received: 8 July 2024 | Revised: 4 February 2025 | Accepted: 21 March 2025 DOI: 10.1111/imig.70022 SPECIAL ISSUE ARTICLE Interoperability and the multiple modes of ordering in Europe's digital border regime Paul Trauttmansdorff1 | Chiara Loschi2 This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2025 The Author(s). International Migration published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of International Organization for Migration. 1Department of Science, Technology and Society, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany 2Department of Philosophy, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy Correspondence Chiara Loschi, Department of Philosophy, University of Bologna, Via Zamboni, 38, 40126 Bologna, Italy. Email: [email protected] Funding information Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften; ENS Fellowship Programme “Datafication in European Societies”; Horizon 2020 Framework Programme Abstract Drawing on qualitative interview data and document analysis, this article traces the making of interoperability between databases as a policy response to Europe's crisisladen management of migration. It argues that, rather than adhering to a singular logic, the policy enacts several modes of ordering through which actors employ distinct meanings and rationales, deal with challenges and complexities, and evoke continuity and/or disruption in the digital bordering of migration. Specifically, four ordering patterns are identified: interoperability as a technological project, as database (re- )administration, as legal configuration and as political vision. Each mode assembles and performs the interoperability policy differently, uses modes of expression, proposes certain problems and interventions and also engenders forms of othering. Therefore, this article examines interoperability in the border regime as an example of how the digitization of borders and migration is driven by multiple—and partially conflicting—rationales and ordering intentions. 2 of 17 | TRAUTTMANSDORFF and LOSCHI egovernance, interoperability has been associated with digital innovation and its potential governmental benefits (Hodapp & Hanelt, 2022). The concept has been used in various domains, including healthcare, telecommunication, electronic government and emergency response mechanisms (Chen et al., 2013; Kohli & SweelinTan, 2016; Pelizza, 2016). It has moreover permeated the domain of migration, where interoperability has emerged as a prominent strategy to facilitate data exchange across multiple databases, platforms or applications related to migrant information. Our article explores the rise of interoperability between largescale information systems in the digital border regime of the European Union (EU). On 14 May 2019, the EU adopted Regulation 2019/817 and 2019/818 to make six major ITsystems interoperable: the Schengen Information System (SIS II), Eurodac (for European Dactyloscopy), the Visa Information System (VIS), as well as systems currently under development, such as the Entry–Exit System (EES), the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) and the European Criminal Records Information System for ThirdCountry Nationals (ECRISTCN). These databases pursue different purposes but underpin the EU's border, security and migration management by facilitating information sharing, identity verification and coordination among EU member states. The interoperability regulations promise better crossreferencing of personal and biometric information across the systems and articulate the goal of enhancing border security while combatting ‘illegal immigration’. As Leese argues, interoperability ‘refuses to be defined easily and in a uniform way’ (2024: 146–147). There are at least two main meanings applied to database interoperability: the first refers to the more abstract, technical dimension concerning the ‘ways in which two or more different entities can function together and work towards a common goal’ (p. 146). A second meaning refers to the processes of adjusting EU databases in migration and border domains to be in line with broader political goals inscribed into the interoperability policy. Both meanings are often intertwined and at times hard to separate. In our article, we are interested in how the policy of interoperability is introduced with several coexisting meanings serving multiple goals. We explore this policy as an ordering tool that must respond to crises perceived on several levels in the EU's borders and migration control regime. Inspired by Science and Technology Studies (STS) scholar John Law and his concept of ‘modes of ordering’ (Law, 1994), we understand ordering as a strategy to use distinct and sometimes competing priorities, principles or practices that assemble policy in multiple ways (Law, 1994; Ureta, 2015). We argue that a closer examination of ordering patterns can provide a deeper insight into why policymakers ascribe both transformative and stabilizing power to interoperability while rationalizing it as a pragmatic policy response. By paying attention to these patterns, we illustrate that the digitization of borders does not adhere to a singular rationale or logic. Instead, policies like interoperability can embody multiple rationales and justifications; they represent distinct meanings to navigate the border regime's challenges; they represent various modes of governing borders and human mobility; and they serve different interests of actors, invoking both continuity and change in the crisisladen management of migration. In what follows, we will provide a summary of key themes in the literature on the digitization of border regimes. We will then clarify our concept of modes of ordering in policymaking, drawing from the empirical material we analysed. We will furthermore delineate four distinct modes of ordering: interoperability as a technological project, as database administration, as legal configuration and as political vision. Our conclusion discusses some intersections between these modes, some constraints and uncertainties associated with their performance, and the transition between modes in instances of failure. Interoperability in the literature Scholarship has critically engaged with the increasing data production and collection to register, track and control migrant mobilities and reflected on the transformations it brought about in border and migration governance (Bigo, 2014; Pelizza, 2020, 2021; Scheel et al., 2019; Trauttmansdorff, 2024). Data and digital technologies have played crucial roles in further moving borders beyond geographical demarcation lines, the emergence of novel | 3 of 17 INTEROPERABILITY AND MODES OF ORDERING ‘technoborderscapes’, or creating delocalized assemblages of control (CôtéBoucher, 2002; Godin & Donà, 2021; Sohn, 2016). They facilitate activities such as monitoring, adapting or correcting data flows, shaping how ‘mobility [is made] governable in the first place’ (Bellanova & Glouftsios, 2022a: 180). They have also enabled a new quality in the hyperdocumentation of mobile people, enacting disciplinary, biopolitical or confessional regimes of identification (Salter, 2005). These regimes build on sociotechnical forms of ‘border work’ (Vukov & Sheller, 2013), based on biometric recognition, drones and satellites, include ‘predeparture checks facilitated by algorithmic riskprofiling or the capture and analysis of social media and mobile phone data’ (Glouftsios & Scheel, 2021: 123). Combined with new biometric registration techniques, virtual asylum or visa procedures and traveller watch lists, the storage of information in largescale databases also demonstrates the persistent governmental desire to ensure the traceability of migrants (Bonditti, 2004). Such intensive collections of data have increasingly been accompanied by calls for interoperability, as in the Global Compact on Refugees (Gilbert, 2019), and supplemented by promises of artificial intelligence (AI) to automate the evaluations of data sets (Aradau, 2023). Scholars have also highlighted how data interoperability in migrant surveillance systems relies on other technological apparatuses such as drones and satellites (Topak, 2023). In the EU context, centralized databases like SIS II, VIS or Eurodac have served as key lenses for examining the technopolitics of border control, revealing both the meticulous technical routines of border management as well as the fragile nature of virtual surveillance and digital screening processes (Dijstelbloem, 2021). Attention has moreover been centred on the influence of newly emerging actors in bordering activities, ranging from transnational bodies such as the EU Agency euLISA (Maguire, 2023; Trauttmansdorff, 2024) to global security companies (Baird, 2018; Schwertl, 2018). In the context of EU databases for migration management, the discussion on organizing, adjusting and enhancing synergies among them can be traced back to at least the early 2000s (De Hert & Gutwirth, 2006). The 2019 interoperability regulations, as Bigo et al. (2020) suggest, mark a crucial juncture in the evolution of European security, opening the field to a new group of IT experts who collaborate and compete with police, intelligence and other security professionals (p. 112). They are now key actors participating in what Leese calls an emerging ‘digital space of identity management’ that ‘[draws] together border control, migration, and security as a crosscutting governmental tool […] to produce knowledge about mobile, volatile populations’ (2022: 125–26). The concept of interoperability has also been explained as a response to prevailing epistemic and operational ‘anxieties’ surrounding the use of security databases (Bellanova & Glouftsios, 2022b) or as a solutionist paradigm that conceals the virulent complexities inherent in digital bordering (Trauttmansdorff, 2023). Importantly, on technical levels, scholars have scrutinized how existing data protection frameworks face massive challenges from interoperability and its envisioned components, such as the Common Identity Repository (CIR) or Multiple Identity Detector (MID). They give rise to particular concerns regarding the ‘massive extension of the surveillance of many or even all EU and third country citizens travelling to and in Europe’ (Aden, 2020: 94). Several critical legal scholars have underscored the risks associated with such an expansive scheme of data exchange, encompassing threats to fundamental rights, privacy and the rule of law (Curtin & Bastos, 2021; Vavoula, 2020). All these studies demonstrate how crucial the study of interoperability becomes to understand the political, legal and technological transformations that aim to tackle the increasing load of collected data on mobile populations. Building on the research directions outlined above, our article presents an additional perspective: empirically, we are taking a closer look at the policymaking process while questioning why and how interoperability is performed as a multiple policy instrument that is intended to have an impact at a technical, administrative, organizational and political level. We emphasize the importance of not only reflecting its possible (political and legal) effects but also shedding light on how, in this way, assembling this policy provides important means to respond in a moment of crisis. Conceptually, we thus focus on the modes of ordering enacted through interoperability, proposing a novel perspective on policymaking in the digitization of the EU border regime. 4 of 17 | TRAUTTMANSDORFF and LOSCHI How policy enacts modes of ordering Combining critical policy studies and STS, our conceptual approach departs from perceiving policy as a ‘continually emerging effect of multiple elements that are assembled and reassembled’ (Clarke et al., 2015; Davies & Lindvig, 2021; Wright, 2011: 30). Assemblage thinking has become a popular approach in policy conceptualizations, rejecting the idea of policy as a ‘coherent thing or as definable as the sum of its constitutive components’ (Savage, 2019: 322). As an analytical tool, it emphasizes a policy's contingent and contextual character, its appearance in different guises, its coexisting meanings or enactment of multiple (policy) worlds (Davies & Lindvig, 2021; Greenhalgh, 2008; Ureta, 2015). Our approach therefore follows this line of thinking and rejects the assumption of a policy's essence; as Savage (2019) argues, it is fundamental to ‘[understand] how a policy assemblage can operate with strategic and observable impacts, but without a singular guiding rationale’ (325). Policy assemblages rather come into being as arrangements of heterogeneous components, representing ‘a gathering together of political imaginations, rationalities, technologies, infrastructures and agents towards steering individuals and groups in particular directions’ (ibid.: 328). Paraphrasing John Law, policymaking in the digital border regime could be conceived as a complex ‘process of holding things together that are not strongly consistent’ (Law, 2004: 113). We use this approach to carve out multiple meanings of interoperability as a policy in the border regime, that is the ways in which actors enact different rationales, logics or justifications for this policy. As Ureta (2015) explains, policy assemblages enact what Law calls different modes of ordering, that is ‘recursive pattern[s] embodied and recursively instantiated in the networks of the social’ (Law, 1994: 111). In Law's work on the management strategies of the Daresbury laboratory (1994), he describes modes of ordering as ‘intentional, but (often) nonsubjective, selfreflexive strategies’ (109) that combine various priorities, principles, management practices and competing rationales, through which actors' pattern and enact realities differently. Translated to our case, different types of ordering work inform policymakers' perceptions of what interoperability should stand for, what kind of problem and solutions it patterns, why and for whom this policy must intervene in the EU border regime. While ordering strategies have typically been associated with classification procedures through bordering spaces and databases (Knox et al., 2008; Van Rossem & Pelizza, 2022), our contribution emphasizes that ordering attempts seek to affect technical and organizational processes within the border regime at the same time. Modes of ordering thus entail ‘the search for strategic effects, the aim to transform an existing situation […] through the establishment of particular sets of relations between new and existing [policy] entities’ (Ureta, 2015: 12). As we will see, interoperability is assembled through different policy elements, takes on different meanings, follows diverging logics and justifications for practices relating to the policy (see Table 1 below). Contrary to policymakers' official presentations of ‘rational, linear and tidy implementation models’ (Sin, 2014: 438), we thereby want to acknowledge the multiple orders inherent to this policy. We will therefore investigate the making of database interoperability as performative (policy) occurrences that pursue ordering attempts rather than trace a welldefined implementation process (Ureta, 2015: 13). Understood as an instrument of ordering from within, interoperability appears as a policy multiple (cf. Mol, 2002)—invoking both continuity and change, crisis and (temporal) stability in the EU's management of migration. We believe that such an approach can refine our understanding of policies as agents of digitizing borders and migration. MATERIALS AND METHODS To identify modes of ordering in the making of interoperability of EU databases of border control, our approach involved a qualitativeinterpretative framework that centered around 20 semistructured research interviews (occasionally with two or three interlocutors from the same organization) and a broader collection of selected documents. Documents included legislative texts, policy papers from the European Commission (EC), opinion papers, reports by agencies such as the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) or the European Data Protection | 5 of 17 INTEROPERABILITY AND MODES OF ORDERING TABLE 1 Tabular overview of interoperability's modes of ordering. Analytical criteria Interoperability as Larger technological project Restructuring database administration Legal configuration Political vision Policy performance Technological evolution Administrativeorganizational shift New legal pathways Political measure Rhetorical, simplified expression Databases talking to each other Building a new ecosystem Enabling/streamlining access The EU must deliver Perceived crisis or problem Gaps of information/ knowledge Compartmentalized architecture of databases Nonimplementation of regulations, identity fraud Lack of political response to migration/terrorism Required intervention Technological ordering Administrativeorganizational ordering Legal ordering Political ordering Imagined solution Technological continuity, data holism Creating a central common repository Legally enabling wider access to databases Fostering European infrastructure Othering people on the move Migration as data population Normalizing suspicion Criminalization of asylum Framing noncitizens Contested elements Technical necessity, political desirability Largescale surveillance, data misuse and abuse Inadequate safeguards Securitydriven politics 6 of 17 | TRAUTTMANSDORFF and LOSCHI Supervisor (EDPS), reports from the HighLevel Expert Group on Interoperability (HLEG) and analytical summaries (e.g. by the European Parliamentary Research Service). Our interview material encompassed a range of stakeholders that were not only involved in drafting policy but also in contesting it. The interviews referred to the history and emergence of the policy, interoperability's meaning for border and migration management, its technical and political elements and its potential implications. To understand the different perspectives, we have spoken to a diverse set of actors, including not just EU institutions such as the EC, the Council, EU agencies, the Parliament, but also national representatives, data protection experts and members of NGOs whose often critical work focused on interoperability and/or border control facilitated by databases. Our first inductive approach to the empirical material quickly presented a surprising picture of a very diverse spectrum of explanations and interpretations of interoperability. Inspired by Law's concept of modes of ordering, we approached our material again with a renewed focus that was theoretically induced to carve out, and analytically code, articulations of ordering. Law describes a mode of ordering also as ‘Foucauldian minidiscourse’ (Law, 2003: 1), detectable through empirical observation. Taking inspiration from his remarks on how to recognize them (Law, 1994: 110–112), we formulated our own criteria and identified four modes that were embedded in the making of interoperability: interoperability as technological project, as databases administration, as legal configuration and as political vision. Each mode was analysed based on the following attributes. Firstly, we examined the discursive performances of this policy, which always drew on different policy parts or components. It included actors' emphasis on different priorities, justifications or strategic objectives in each mode, as well as specific material or legal elements that served their explanations. By articulating how actors assemble their policy, ‘modes tell of themselves, they perform themselves, and they embody themselves in different materials’ (Law, 1994: 151). Secondly, we sought to identify characteristic rhetorical expressions for each mode of ordering, typically trying to convey the policy's essential element and relying on repeated stories of simplification (see Law, 1994: 152). Thirdly, each ordering mode presents a specific set of problems, often characterizing pressing challenges or the crisis to the border regime. Fourthly, each mode also defines a particular style of intervention, that is a certain way in which interoperability can operate as a tool of crisis management, transformation, stability or maintenance. Fifthly, each pattern exhibits a distinct approach to ‘othering’, marked by a particular framing of individuals on the move (as nonEuropeans). Finally, each mode triggers its own form of critique and contestation against the policy, suggesting that modes of ordering are never stable frameworks but inherently incomplete and require repeated attempts of stabilization. INTEROPERABILITY'S MODES OF ORDERING Technological project The first mode of ordering articulates interoperability as a technological project. It assembles several policy elements to paint a narrative of technological evolution in the border regime, performing a policy reality where interoperability must be unequivocally associated with efficiency and innovation. In this context, interoperability is promoted as a shared commitment, embodying inherently positive values within a fragmented landscape of databases. Accordingly, this policy becomes most intelligible when it is perceived within ‘an area where a lot of [technological] developments have occurred in the last years’ (Interview 14). Furthermore, interoperability is here not a brandnew concept but rather narrated as a quasinatural evolution, which must enhance the overall processes in digitized border control and security. As one of the interviewees stated on interoperability, ‘we wanted to make more systematic checks at borders to ensure that the authorities already use […] all of those [databases] they need to use at the same time’ (ibid.). As a technological project and commitment to continued technological evolution, interoperability ‘is not new at all; […] it's something that just basically means “having one system talk to another one”’ (ibid.). | 7 of 17 INTEROPERABILITY AND MODES OF ORDERING A set of simplifying catchphrases repeatedly emerges in this mode of ordering, particularly in the narratives of EC and EU agency representatives. As seen above, one rhetorical figure involves the notion of databases possessing the ability to ‘talk to another’, an idea that originates from the technical definition of interoperability in an early EC Communication on ‘Stronger and Smarter Information Systems for Borders and Security’ (EC, 2016). This document emphasizes the key principle of ‘interconnectivity of information systems’, the ability of ‘different systems or databases […] to “talk to each other” technically’ (EC, 2016: 16). Another recurring phrase suggests that interoperability will ‘bring down the data silos’, signifying the elimination of information systems that collected data solely for their separated purposes. If any technical details in the policy are considered important, it is because they are simplified representations of improved border controls through data sharing. A representative from the euLISA Agency explains: the shared BMS [Biometric Matching System] replaces those five [matching systems] with one engine common to all five [information] systems. And, which means we only need to maintain one […], we only need to develop and evolve one system […]. It's more rational, it should be cheaper, it should be more effective, and it should have better performance capabilities. (Interview 2) Similarly, officials argue that interoperability ‘will make substantial difference in terms of efficiency and effectiveness of the border management with all the positive effects also on internal security’ (Interview 1). Such narratives must establish a sense of continuity by invoking the gradual expansion of border infrastructure, and they avoid overemphasizing any disruptive effects of interoperability. As a technological project, interoperability instead symbolizes the steady course of technological transformation. One prevailing problem to solve in Europe's migration management then would stem from incomplete data collections or ‘information gaps’ that separated databases seem to produce (see Trauttmansdorff, 2023; Vavoula, 2020). In ‘Stronger and Smarter Information Systems for Borders and Security’, the creation of the expert group HLEG is announced in order to address ‘current shortcomings and knowledge gaps caused by the complexity and fragmentation of information systems at the European level’ (EC, 2016: 15). Consequently, discussions on interoperability have framed interoperability as a project of filling gaps, correcting previous mistakes, finally ‘mak[ing] sure they [databases] can talk to each other and avoid information gaps by linking information that are present in different system’ (Interview 4). Interoperability is here positioned as a technical solution to address future challenges and overcome the ‘crisis’ of migration management—through technically advancing border control: ‘it will not be the holy grail […], obviously, but it will solve a number of gaps, of serious issues in the future’ (Interview 13). The set of problems imagined in this mode of ordering requires technocratically solving mindsets that can help sustain stability. In other words, ordering is envisioned through technological continuity. On numerous occasions, speakers emphasized how interoperability aligns with a ‘historical perspective’ on the broader context of digitization. [S]o, just to finalize a bit the point on the history: now we realized that creating several IT systems, one by one in a way following the siloapproach, which made sense when you look at it from the perspective of ‘I am doing one system for one goal’. But then we realized, later on, that by creating all these systems in silos and not communicating between themselves, we created […] some gaps of information or some holes even in terms of security, or possibilities for the people to use one system, [… with one] identity, and then apply to another one with a different identity. (Interview 14) Posing the problem as information or knowledge gaps also involves the seemingly neutral assumption of data holism, that is that migrant data are ‘better’ data when they are linked across systems and become more readable, 8 of 17 | TRAUTTMANSDORFF and LOSCHI accurate or actionable. Data holism posits that information becomes truly valuable only when considered as a networked whole, where the integration and interconnectedness of data yield meaningful and insightful knowledge. Ordering reality thus intervenes in the digital border regime on the level of the technical; by promoting data holism as an underlying justification of interoperability, the solution is put forward as a technological project that could produce a more complete, informational picture of a bordercrosser. At the same time, this mode of ordering puts forth a strategic naivety that depoliticizes the data collections of migration, a form of othering that frames migration only in terms of a data population—processable, sharable and governable as data. EU institutions rhetorically establish a clean separation between what appears to be the neutral circulation of information and the hierarchical and often violent process of data extraction. It is this seemingly apolitical manoeuvre that has drawn frequent criticisms of this mode of ordering. An early reflection paper by the EDPS (2017) criticized the interoperability initiative by the EC for overly emphasizing the value of interoperability's technical feasibility and thereby effectively sidelining questions regarding the necessity, political desirability or legal adequacy of unrestricted data exchange. Likewise, one of our interlocutors from a civil society organization campaigning on interoperability pointed out that policymakers portrayed interoperability as a ‘scientifically rational solution’ to fundamentally sociopolitical problems in migration and border governance. They stressed instead that ‘[data] is not scientifically uniform in the way it's been collected and shared’ (Interview 17). Their critique thus targeted the ordering attempts that not only pushed forward interoperability as a mere technological project but also ignored the fact that collecting migrant data has always been highly political as a fundamentally uneven, hierarchical and often violent undertaking by European authorities. Restructuring database administration An alternative mode of ordering performs interoperability not as an instrument of technological continuity but as a shift in the administration of largescale IT systems. In this mode, the importance of the policy's individual, technical components, particularly the CIR and the shared Biometric Matching Service (sBMS), is particularly accentuated, as well as their implication on adjusting workflows throughout different administrations/administrative units. Its core emphasis lies on the interplay of individual policy components that would profoundly reshape administrative structures and the handling and processing of data. Interoperability is here better conceived as a disruptive transformation, necessitating the adaptation of operational actors on the ground, such as border guards. Thus, the policy signifies ‘more than would expect from its name [… which] would merely see the technical interconnection of systems’, as a national representative emphasized. Instead, it would entail a ‘complete change in the current database structure within the EU’ (Interview 10). Interoperability transforms here the rationale of the administrative handling of data, performing what Bellanova and Glouftsios characterize as datastructuring (2022b). Whereas databases were previously tailored for specific collection purposes (e.g. for visa processing or asylum applications), the policy now challenges the underlying concept of purpose limitation, rendering it ‘a bit of [… an] almost dead letter’ (Roundtable with data protection experts, expert 1). Although the interoperability regulations officially maintain access restrictions for each individual system, the various components effectively facilitate the circulation of information across all systems. The logic of the CIR explicitly aims to draw on information that was originally stored for a distinct purpose in a separate databases (e.g. for visa processing in the VIS). One of the interlocutors stressed that, hypothetically ‘[n] ow information can be reused for different purposes and once you interconnect systems, it becomes much easier to do it more and more, reuse [it] for other purposes’ (Interview 16). A recurrent metaphor for this logic is articulated in the notion of a (new) ecosystem: ‘So, it's a whole idea of creating a new ecosystem where everything, you know, it's [easier] to reach. It's not just interconnecting systems’ (ibid.). As such, interoperability is especially advocated by those actors who underscore the policy's future | 15 of 17 INTEROPERABILITY AND MODES OF ORDERING Endnote 1 This narrative also ignores the fact that some data from EU citizens are stored; SIS II processes data of EU citizens for whom there is a European arrest warrant. REFERENCES Aden, H. (2020) Interoperability between EU policing and migration databases: risks for privacy. European Public Law, 26(1), 93–108. Available from: https:// doi. org/ 10. 54648/ euro2 020006 Amelung, N. (2021) ‘Crimmigration control’ across borders. Historical Social Research/Historische Sozialforschung, 46(3), 151–177. Available from: h t t p s : / / d o i . o r g / 1 0 . 1 2 7 5 9 / h s r . 4 6 . 2 0 2 1 . 3 . 1 5 1 - 1 7 7 Aradau, C. (2023) Borders have always been artificial: migration, data and AI. International Migration, 61, 303–306. Available from: https:// doi. org/ 10. 1111/ imig. 13186 Baird, T. (2018) Interest groups and strategic constructivism: business actors and border security policies in the European Union. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 44(1), 118–136. Available from: h t t p s : / / d o i . o r g / 1 0 . 1 0 8 0 / 1 3 6 9 1 8 3 X . 2017. 1316185 Bellanova, R. & Glouftsios, G. (2022a) Controlling the Schengen Information System (SIS II): the infrastructural politics of fragility and maintenance. Geopolitics, 27(1), 160–184. Available from: https:// doi. org/ 10. 1080/ 14650 045. 2020. 1830765 Bellanova, R. & Glouftsios, G. (2022b) Formatting European security integration through database interoperability. European Security, 31(3), 454–474. Available from: h t t p s : / / d o i . o r g / 1 0 . 1 0 8 0 / 0 9 6 6 2 8 3 9 . 2 0 2 2 . 2 1 0 1 8 8 6 Bigo, D. (2014) The (in)securitization practices of the three universes of EU border control: Military/Navy – border guards/police – database analysts. Security Dialogue, 45(3), 209–225. Available from: h t t p s : / / d o i . o r g / 1 0 . 1 1 7 7 / 0 9 6 7 0 10614 530459 Bigo, D., Ewert, L. & Kuşkonmaz, E.M. (2020) The interoperability controversy or how to fail successfully: lessons from Europe. International Journal of Migration and Border Studies, 6(1/2), 93–114. Available from: https:// doi. org/ 10. 1504/ ijmbs. 2020. 108687 Bonditti, P. (2004) From territorial space to networks: a Foucauldian approach to the implementation of biometry. Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 29(4), 465–482. Available from: h t t p s : / / d o i . o r g / 1 0 . 1 1 7 7 / 0 3 0 4 3 7 5 4 0 4 0 2 9 0 0 4 0 5 Chen, R., Sharman, R., Rao, H.R. & Upadhyaya, S.J. (2013) Data model development for fire related extreme events: an activity theory approach. MIS Quarterly, 37(1), 125–147. Available from: https:// doi. org/ 10. 25300/ misq/ 2013/ 37.1. 06 Clarke, J., Bainton, D., Lendvai, N. & Stubbs, P. (2015) Making policy move. Towards a politics of translation and assemblage. Bristol: Policy Press. CôtéBoucher, K. (2002) The diffuse border: intelligencesharing, control and confinement along Canada's smart border. Surveillance and Society, 5(2), 142–165. Available from: h t t p s : / / d o i . o r g / 1 0 . 2 4 9 0 8 / s s . v 5 i 2 . 3 4 3 2 Curtin, D. & Bastos, F. (2021) Interoperable information sharing and the five novel frontiers of EU governance: a special issue. European Public Law, 411(1), 59–70. Available from: https:// doi. org/ 10. 54648/ euro2 020004 Davies, S.R. & Lindvig, K. (2021) Assembling research integrity: negotiating a policy object in scientific governance. Critical Policy Studies, 15(4), 444–461. Available from: h t t p s : / / d o i . o r g / 1 0 . 1 0 8 0 / 1 9 4 6 0 1 7 1 . 2 0 2 1 . 1 8 7 9 6 6 0 De Hert, P. & Gutwirth, S. (2006) Interoperability of police databases within the EU: an accountable political choice? SSRN Electronic Journal, 20(1–2), 21–36. Available from: h t t p s : / / d o i . o r g / 1 0 . 2 1 3 9 / s s r n . 9 7 1 8 5 5 Dijstelbloem, H. (2021) Borders as infrastructure: The Technopolitics of border control. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. European Commission. (2016) Stronger and smarter information systems for borders and security. Brussels, COM 205 final. Available from: h t t p s : / / e u r - l e x . e u r o p a . e u / l e g a l - c o n t e n t / E N / T X T / ? u r i = C O M % 3 A 2 0 1 6 % 3 A 2 0 5 % 3 A F I N [Accessed 5th January 2024]. European Data Protection Service (EDPS). (2017) Reflection paper on the interoperability of information systems in the area of freedom, security and justice. Available from: https:// edps. europa. eu/ sites/ edp/ files/ publi cation/ 171116_ opini on_ inter opera bility_ en. pdf [Accessed 24th January 2024]. Gilbert, G. (2019) Not bound but committed: operationalizaing the global compact on refugees. International Migration, 57(6), 27–42. Available from: https:// doi. org/ 10. 1111/ imig. 12632 Glouftsios, G. & Scheel, S. (2021) An inquiry into the digitisation of border and migration management: performativity, contestation and heterogeneous engineering. Third World Quarterly, 42(1), 123–140. Available from: https:// doi. org/ 1 0 . 1 0 8 0 / 0 1 4 3 6 5 9 7 . 2 0 2 0 . 1 8 0 7 9 2 9 Godin, M. & Donà, G. (2021) Rethinking transit zones: migrant trajectories and transnational networks in TechnoBorderscapes. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 47(14), 3276–3292. Available from: https:// doi. org/ 10. 1080/ 13691 83X. 2020. 1804193 Greenhalgh, S. (2008) Just one child: science and policy in Deng's China. Berkeley, CA and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. 16 of 17 | TRAUTTMANSDORFF and LOSCHI HighLevel Expert Group on Information Systems and Interoperability (HLEG). (2017) Final report. Available from: https:// ec. europa. eu/ trans paren cy/ exper tgroup sregis ter/ screen/ exper tgroups/ consu lt? do= group Detail. group Detai l& group ID= 3435 [Accessed 5th January 2024]. Hodapp, D. & Hanelt, A. (2022) Interoperability in the era of digital innovation: an information systems research agenda. Journal of Information Technology, 37(4), 407–427. Available from: h t t p s : / / d o i . o r g / 1 0 . 1 1 7 7 / 0 2 6 8 3 9 6 2 2 1 1 0 6 4 3 0 4 Knox, H., O'Doherty, D. & Westrup, C. (2008) Enacting airports: space, movement and modes of ordering. Organization, 15(6), 869–888. Available from: h t t p s : / / d o i . o r g / 1 0 . 1 1 7 7 / 1 3 5 0 5 0 8 4 0 8 0 9 5 8 1 8 Kohli, R. & SweelinTan, S. (2016) Electronic health records: how can IS researchers contribute to transforming healthcare. MIS Quarterly, 40(3), 553–574. Law, J. (1994) Organizing modernity. Oxford & Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Law, J. (2003) Ordering and obduracy. Lancaster: Centre for Science Studies, Lancaster University. Available from: https:// www. lanca ster. ac. uk/ fass/ resou rces/ socio logyonlin epapers/ papers/ laworder ingandobdur acy. pdf Law, J. (2004) After method: mess in social science research. London/New York: Routledge. Leese, M. (2022) Fixing state vision: interoperability, biometrics, and identity management in the EU. Geopolitics, 27(1), 113–133. Available from: https:// doi. org/ 10. 1080/ 14650 045. 2020. 1830764 Leese, M. (2024) AI and interoperability. In: Paul, R., Carmel, E. & Cobbe, J. (Eds.) Handbook on public policy and artificial intelligence. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 146–157. Available from: h t t p s : / / d o i . o r g / 1 0 . 4 3 3 7 / 9 7 8 1 8 0 3 9 2 2 1 7 1 . 0 0 0 1 8 Maguire, E.M. (2023) Securityasservice in the management of European border data infrastructures. Journal of Common Market Studies, 62(5), 1379–1394. Available from: https:// doi. org/ 10. 1111/ jcms. 13543 Mol, A. (2002) The body multiple. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Opitz, S. & Tellmann, U. (2015) Europe as infrastructure: networking the operative community. South Atlantic Quarterly, 114(1), 171–190. Available from: https:// doi. org/ 10. 1215/ 00382 8762831356 Pelizza, A. (2016) Developing the vectorial glance: infrastructural inversion for the new agenda on government information systems. Science, Technology & Human Values, 41(2), 298–321. Available from: https:// doi. org/ 10. 1177/ 01622 4 3 9 1 5 5 9 7 4 7 8 Pelizza, A. (2020) Processing alterity, enacting Europe: migrant registration and identification as coconstruction of individuals and polities. Science, Technology & Human Values, 45(2), 262–288. Available from: https:// doi. org/ 10. 1177/ 01622 43919 827927 Pelizza, A. (2021) Identification as translation: the art of choosing the right spokespersons at the securitized border. Social Studies of Science, 51(4), 487–511. Available from: h t t p s : / / d o i . o r g / 1 0 . 1 1 7 7 / 0 3 0 6 3 1 2 7 2 0 9 8 3 9 3 2 Regulation (EU) 2019/817 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 May 2019 on establishing a framework for interoperability between EU information systems in the field of borders and visa. Regulation (EU) 2019/818 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 May 2019 on establishing a framework for interoperability between EU information systems in the field of police and judicial cooperation, asylum and migration. Salter, M.B. (2005) At the threshold of security: a theory of international borders. In: Zureik, E. & Salter, M.B. (Eds.) Global surveillance and policing: borders, security, identity. Portland: Willan Publishing, pp. 36–50. Savage, G.C. (2019) What is policy assemblage? Territory, Politics, Governance, 8(3), 319–335. Available from: https:// doi. o r g / 1 0 . 1 0 8 0 / 2 1 6 2 2 6 7 1 . 2 0 1 8 . 1 5 5 9 7 6 0 Scheel, S., Ruppert, E. & UstekSpilda, F. (2019) Enacting migration through data practices. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 37(4), 579–588. Available from: h t t p s : / / d o i . o r g / 1 0 . 1 1 7 7 / 0 2 6 3 7 7 5 8 1 9 8 6 5 7 9 1 Schwertl, M. (2018) Die Entmenschlichung Der Grenze. Zur Bedeutung von Technisierung Im EUropäischen MigrationsUnd Grenzregime. Movements. Journal Für Kritische MigrationsUnd Grenzregimeforschung, 4(2), 77–101. Sin, C. (2014) The policy object: a different perspective on policy enactment in higher education. Higher Education, 68(3), 435–448. Available from: h t t p s : / / d o i . o r g / 1 0 . 1 0 0 7 / s 1 0 7 3 4 - 0 1 4 - 9 7 2 1 - 5 Sohn, C. (2016) Navigating borders' multiplicity: the critical potential of assemblage. Area, 48(2), 183–189. Available from: https:// doi. org/ 10. 1111/ area. 12248 Topak, Ö.E. (2023) Drones: robot eyes on racialized migrant bodies. International Migration, 61, 313–317. Available from: https:// doi. org/ 10. 1111/ imig. 13183 Trauttmansdorff, P. (2023) The fabrication of a necessary policy fiction: the interoperability ‘solution’ for biometric Borders. Critical Policy Studies, 17(3), 428–446. Available from: h t t p s : / / d o i . o r g / 1 0 . 1 0 8 0 / 1 9 4 6 0 1 7 1 . 2 0 2 2 . 2 1 4 7 8 5 1 Trauttmansdorff, P. (2024) The digital transformation of the European border regime. Bristol: Bristol University Press. Ureta, S. (2015) Assembling policy: Transantiago, human devices, and the dream of a worldclass society. Cambridge, MA/ London: The MIT Press. Van Rossem, W. & Pelizza, A. (2022) The ontology explorer: a method to make visible data infrastructures for population management. Big Data & Society, 9(1), 1–18. Available from: h t t p s : / / d o i . o r g / 1 0 . 1 1 7 7 / 2 0 5 3 9 5 1 7 2 2 1 1 0 4 0 8 7 | 17 of 17 INTEROPERABILITY AND MODES OF ORDERING Vavoula, N. (2020) Interoperability of EU information systems: the deathblow to the rights to privacy and personal data protection of thirdcountry nationals? European Public Law, 26(1), 131–156. Available from: https:// doi. org/ 10. 54648/ EURO2 020008 Vukov, T. & Sheller, M. (2013) Border work: surveillant assemblages, virtual fences, and tactical countermedia. Social Semiotics, 23(2), 225–241. Available from: h t t p s : / / d o i . o r g / 1 0 . 1 0 8 0 / 1 0 3 5 0 3 3 0 . 2 0 1 3 . 7 7 7 5 9 2 Wright, S. (2011) Studying policy: methods, paradigms, perspectives: introduction. In: Pero, D., Wright, S. & Shore, C. (Eds.) Policy worlds: anthropology and the analysis of contemporary power. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, pp. 27–31. How to cite this article: Trauttmansdorff, P. & Loschi, C. (2025) Interoperability and the multiple modes of ordering in Europe's digital border regime. International Migration, 63, e70022. Available from: https://doi. org/10.1111/imig.70022