Researching the Mexico-US border: A tale of dataveillance

The Mexico-U.S. border is a space considered `smart´ due to the amount of surveillance technology used for national security purposes. The technological ecology consists of integrated fixed towers, remote video surveillance systems, mobile video surveillance systems, Predator B surveillance drones, mobile X-ray units, automated license plate readers, cell phone tracking towers, implanted motion sensors, biometric data collection, and DNA sampling (Aizeki et al. Citation2021). Whilst these instruments are usually linked to irregular border crossers, transborder commuters, who physically cross the border every day, also experience the same surveillance regime. This paper discusses the technological ‘self-defense’ protocol I developed in 2019 when conducting transborder research for my doctoral thesis, which required intense border crossings across Mexico and the U.S. During the ten months of fieldwork, U.S. CBP had the capacity to search my personal device and belongings without a warrant, raising ethical concerns about data protection. As a result, the protocol developed to protect data and participants considered the ‘smart’ border as part of the methods designed that included encrypting information. In hyper-surveilled spaces, data protection represents a challenge for border researchers and the people involved in such a project.