Petra Molnar – författare

With a Foreword by E. Tendayi AchiumeA chilling exposé of the inhumane and lucrative sharpening of borders around the globe through experimental surveillance technologyFinalist for the Governor General''s Literary Award for NonfictionIn 2022, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced it was training "robot dogs" to help secure the U.S.-Mexico border against migrants. Four-legged machines equipped with cameras and sensors would join a network of drones and automated surveillance towers—nicknamed the "smart wall." This is part of a worldwide trend: as more people are displaced by war, economic instability, and a warming planet, more countries are turning to AI-driven technology to "manage" the influx.Based on years of researching borderlands across the world, lawyer and anthropologist Petra Molnar''s The Walls Have Eyes is a truly global story—a dystopian vision turned reality, where your body is your passport and matters of life and death are determined by algorithm. Examining how technology is being deployed by governments on the world''s most vulnerable with little regulation, Molnar also shows us how borders are now big business, with defense contractors and tech start-ups alike scrambling to capture this highly profitable market.With a foreword by former UN Special Rapporteur E. Tendayi Achiume, The Walls Have Eyes reveals the profound human stakes of the sharpening of borders around the globe, foregrounding the stories of people on the move and the daring forms of resistance that have emerged against the hubris and cruelty of those seeking to use technology to turn human beings into problems to be solved.

This open access book examines how emerging border technologies such as AI-driven risk scoring, autonomous surveillance towers, biometric identity systems, predictive analytics, and algorithmic decision tools reshape the criminalization and securitization of migration. Positioned at the intersection of criminology, critical migration studies, and socio-technical analysis, this book argues that AI and other autonomous surveillance technologies do not simply “manage” migration: instead, these tools actively produce racialized suspicion, legitimize expanded policing, and enable new forms of pre-emptive control over people-on-the-move, often leading to adverse outcomes including discrimination, racism, and even death. The term border necrotechnics describes the assemblage of automated systems, infrastructures, and practices through which states and corporations decide which lives are rendered killable, deportable, or indefinitely surveilled at and beyond the border.Drawing on interdisciplinary scholarship, this book situates border AI and surveillance within a broader genealogy of punishment, racialized security practices, and the policing of global mobility. The author argues that AI systems automate historical logics of exclusion, embedding them in digital infrastructures that appear neutral yet replicate deep structural inequalities. Through ethnographic interviews and field observations it offers rare insight into how people experiencing forced displacement encounter emerging surveillance technologies firsthand.