Privatisation of the Digital Hostile Environment: A Seminar with Kaelynn Narita

This talk explores the pattern of using private actors to build, design and maintain border technology in the UK. By exploring the privatisation of the so-called Digital Hostile Environment I reveal the fallacy of technosolutionism held by the Home Office. As the standards, procedures and processes of the Home Office become increasingly automated, tracing the production conditions of digital tools becomes increasingly vital. This talk examines three algorithmic tools used by the Home Office to filter, sort and rank visa applications, and ultimately concludes the privatisation of the Digital Hostile Environment increasingly disperses power relations beyond and inside the UK border.

Kaelynn Narita is a PhD candidate at Goldsmiths College University of London. Her doctoral thesis unearths the so-called Digital Hostile Environment and the technological implication of the UK’s migration governance to disperse border control to public institutions and citizens. Her work emphasises the impact of private actors and the embedded bias of technology.

NB This a hybrid event. If you would like to attend IN PERSON please register here. And please note, the entrance to the Priory Road Complex is at the top of Priory Road, near the junction with Woodland Road.

If you would like to attend ONLINE, please fill in this form here to receive the Teams link.

Co-organised with CenSoF, ESRC Centre for Sociodigital Futures, University of Bristol.