Gender, Power, and Law in European Digital Migration Systems

Abstract

The digitalisation of migration governance has transformed the operation of European borders through the increasing use of biometric identification systems, interoperable databases, automated risk assessment, and data-driven administrative decision-making. While these technologies are promoted as enhancing the efficiency, consistency, and security of migration management, they raise important questions about whether existing European legal frameworks adequately protect fundamental rights and gender equality. This article examines whether the current EU legal framework can address the structural inequalities that digital migration systems may reproduce, particularly regarding migrant women and gender-diverse persons.

The paper adopts a doctrinal legal methodology, analysing the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and the Artificial Intelligence Act through the analytical lens of liberal feminist legal theory and a targeted review of empirical and institutional literature. It develops a framework based on accessibility, transparency and accountability, and institutional design, and applies it to selected examples of digital migration systems, including biometric identification and algorithmic risk assessment, to assess their implications for equality and procedural fairness.

The paper argues that although existing European legal instruments provide important safeguards concerning data protection, non-discrimination, and administrative justice, they remain insufficient to address forms of disadvantage generated by algorithmic design, data practices, and technology-mediated decision-making. Rather than arising from explicit discriminatory rules, these inequalities emerge through ostensibly neutral digital infrastructures that can reproduce structural gender bias while limiting meaningful scrutiny and accountability. By bringing feminist legal theory into dialogue with EU migration, data protection, and AI regulation, the article contributes to the growing debate on governing digital borders by showing the need for a more substantive interpretation of equality and procedural safeguards in regulating digital migration systems.