The article questions digital agency as a subjective experience of refugees when crossing Europe's external and internal borders. More concretely, the article asks how refugees experience digital agency, and how this concrete experience is constituted in specific border practices. In doing so, it examines the contradictions that arise between European laws and human rights in the context of border practices. The analysis of the data of this paper reflects two important components of digital agency: the sense of ownership and control of one's body and actions, and the capacity to think independently and thus make considered choices. This study is based on a qualitative research approach based on narrative interviews. The data was imported to MAXQDA, a software package that allows data to be efficiently collected, organised, analysed and visualised electronically. The article shows how refugees and asylum seekers, when crossing the border to Europe, do not simply enter another country, but a (powerful) institutional system. In having their biometric and digital data collected, they are confronted with several practices of border and risk management that have become routinised and thus ‘normalised’ on an institutional level. Thus, their digital agency must be understood as precarious, underscored by an installed coercive environment.

中文翻译：

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“他们必须知道自己的权利”——反思边境地区寻求庇护者和难民的隐私、知情同意和数字机构


文章质疑数字代理是难民穿越欧洲外部和内部边界时的主观体验。更具体地说，本文询问了难民如何体验数字机构，以及这种具体体验是如何在具体的边境实践中构成的。在此过程中，它审视了边境实践背景下欧洲法律与人权之间出现的矛盾。本文的数据分析反映了数字代理的两个重要组成部分：对自己身体和行为的所有权和控制感，以及独立思考并做出深思熟虑的选择的能力。本研究基于叙事访谈的定性研究方法。数据被导入 MAXQDA，该软件包允许以电子方式有效地收集、组织、分析和可视化数据。这篇文章展示了难民和寻求庇护者在跨越边境进入欧洲时，并不是简单地进入另一个国家，而是进入一个（强大的）制度体系。在收集生物识别和数字数据时，他们面临着几种边境和风险管理实践，这些实践已经成为惯例，从而在机构层面上“正常化”。因此，他们的数字机构必须被理解为不稳定的，这是由已安装的强制环境所强调的。