Artificial intelligence and demographic governance: Migration, risk, and dehumanisation in the European Union

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become central to migration governance in the European Union (EU), where automated systems mediate identification, categorisation, and surveillance under the promise of efficiency and security. This study examines how AI reshapes demographic governance by transforming migrants into statistical objects of risk and control. Using a qualitative case study design focused on the EU, the research combines documentary analysis of legislation, policy frameworks, and institutional reports with secondary quantitative mapping of Eurostat asylum data (2013–2024) and Frontex reports. Rather than establishing causality, the study identifies temporal alignments between the expansion of automated border infrastructures, including Eurodac, ETIAS, and interoperability systems, and changes in asylum recognition rates. Guided by Foucault’s concept of biopower, the analysis develops the notion of algorithmic biopower to explain how data-driven systems anticipate, classify, and filter populations based on inferred risk. The findings indicate a consistent convergence between the expansion of algorithmic infrastructures and a structural decline in recognition rates, alongside the consolidation of selective visibility. Externalisation practices supported by surveillance technologies render some populations statistically invisible, while others are subject to intensified profiling within EU territory. These dynamics raise significant concerns for fundamental rights, including due process and non-refoulement, particularly given the opacity and limited contestability of such systems. Although regulatory frameworks such as the GDPR and the EU AI Act aim to mitigate these risks, they appear insufficient where migration is primarily framed as a security issue. The study contributes by offering a critical conceptual framework and empirical mapping of how algorithmic systems reconfigure inclusion, exclusion, and protection in EU migration governance.