Digital passing: “I died once, so I could live. Perhaps that is my real story”

Abstract

As biometric data is widely considered not only equal to biometric traits but also equivalent to identity, international actors have increasingly conditioned movement on biometric registration and identification. While identity fraud is considered a criminal offence, a growing scholarship explores the implications of unjust data politics and practice in the context of migration management. Hence, this paper aims to offer an alternative interpretation of identity fraud “committed” by individuals who suffer violence and inhumane conditions in conflict situations or refugee camps, during transit, at border crossings, in detention facilities in an era of digitalized identity management and mobility control. By using insights from Holocaust studies, this paper recalls the matter of identity performance during the Holocaust (passing with assumed identities) and conceptualizes digital passing by exploring similarities and differences regarding imagination, resistance, and survival. When not only migration is increasingly illegalized, but the “global gulag” also becomes a reality, digital passing can provide an escape, however temporarily, from dataveillance that is concerned with patterns and correlations in data, instead of acknowledging the complexity of human trajectories and identities. Cover stories are not just a last resort but also a means by which “unwanted” individuals can take responsibility for their own lives to avoid exclusion, violence or premature death.