"(Un-)making" data to "make" security: A discursive and visual inquiry into the production, circulation and use of data across the pan-European information infrastructure

To counter hybrid threats – for example, international terrorism, transnational organised crime and (cyber-)attacks – security and intelligence communities increasingly gather, process and exchange vast amounts of data on presumably suspect individuals. This trend has been enabled by recent developments in surveillance capacities related to Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs). As a result, cross-border data transfers have become not only an element of international trade but also an important component of law enforcement strategies. Nevertheless, the exchange of data for policing purposes is not always smooth. Rather, there are frictions that emerge therein as well as technical and legal issues relating to the combination of data from different information systems and under different formats. This study advances the concept of data lifecycle in relation to the practices, such as the collection, entry, processing, storing, and analysis that direct data in specific ways to create multiple “cycles” of uses. Through the analytical lens of the lifecycle I aim to examine specifically how data are repurposed, not only by digital technologies, but also by provisions regulating access, storage and use of information for criminal matters. The core task consists in identifying the socio-political, legal and technical conditions of possibility that allow for the exchange of data at the pan-European level. By bringing together multiple conceptual and methodological subfields, I shed light on the politicality of EU data infrastructures that appear physically very remote or less visible, yet in a way that people do not realise how mundane they have become. Investigating the data lifecycle as a network of practices generates findings that are useful for understanding how security is enacted through the collection and use of different forms of data and hence for interpreting the evolving landscape of data-driven security governance in the EU.