From robo-dogs to drones and AI lie detectors, technology now impacts every point of a person’s migration journey. Based on years of researching borderlands across the world, lawyer and anthropologist Petra Molnar’s first book, 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. 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.
About the speaker
Petra Molnar is a lawyer and anthropologist specializing in migration and human rights. She is the Associate Director of the Refugee Law Lab at York University and Faculty Associate at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Al Jazeera, Time Magazine, and others. Her first book The Walls Have Eyes: Surviving Migration in the Age of Artificial Intelligence came out in spring 2024 with The New Press.
