Eigenverlag/Self

Abstract:
. The Passenger Name Record (PNR) Directive has introduced a pre-emptive, risk-based approach in the landscape ofEuropean databases and information exchange for security purposes. The article contributes to ongoing debates on algorithmicsecurity and data-driven decision-making by fleshing out the specific way in which the EU PNR-based approach to securitysubstantiates core characteristics of algorithmic regulation. The EU PNR framework appropriates data produced in the commercialsector for generating security-related behavioural predictions and does so in a way that gives rise to a paradoxical normativitydirectly dependent on empirical states. Its ‘securitisation move’ is moreover characterised by an inherent tendence to expand.As a result, the PNR Directive poses challenges for existing check and balance mechanisms and for human autonomy. Thesechallenges could be partially addressed by strengthening ex-post control procedures and independent auditing. Yet in the decisionto adopt a risk-based security model, something more fundamental seems to be at stake, namely, the preservation of the ideaof human beings as moral agents able to direct and modify their behaviour in accordance with an intelligible, reliable andpredictable normative order.