Bits, Bytes, Searches, and Hits Logging-in Accountability for EU Data-led Security

EU data-led and interoperable security poses profound challenges to democratic control and to the normative principles of legal protection and accountability. This chapter analyses the ad hoc practices of accountability that are developing in relation to the actors and instruments in a number of EU security programmes and assesses their ‘loggedness’ in relation to data. The aim is twofold. First, the chapter offers a mapping exercise in relation to accountability practices in a selection of established and emerging database configurations in the EU security realm. The focus is on four security programmes that operate across national boundaries and across public and private spheres: EU-TFTP, TERREG, ETIAS, and ECRIS-TCN. Second, it assesses the extent to which the selected mechanisms are ‘logged-in’ to the work of data analysis that they are expected to give account of. In conclusion, the authors reflect on what a fuller, more meaningful ‘logged-in’ accountability in relation to data-led security could and should look like, both in terms of institutions and digital practices.