Code-dependency: South Africa’s Passenger Name Records and Race

Abstract

This dissertation critically examines the implementation of Passenger Name Record (PNR) systems in South Africa, foregrounding the historical continuities and racialized dimensions of surveillance technologies. While PNR technology and practices are often framed as a neutral, Western security tool developed in response to the ‘Global War on Terror,’ this study challenges that narrative by situating South Africa’s adoption of an integrated PNR regime in 2014 within a longer genealogy of colonial and Apartheid-era systems of population control and mobility management. As the first African country to implement PNR for national security purposes in the absence of significant terrorist threats, South Africa provides a crucial case for examining how global surveillance infrastructures are racialized and repurposed within post-colonial contexts. Ultimately, this dissertation makes the argument that the South African PNR system risks being deeply embedded with Race. Drawing on sociohistorical and sociotechnical analyses, the dissertation argues that PNR is not a value-free or purely technical system, but rather a racialized assemblage that reflects and reinforces enduring forms of exclusion and differential governance. It demonstrates how the racial logics of the apartheid and colonial surveillance regimes are rearticulated through contemporary data infrastructures and are obscured by the technical semblance of algorithmic risk profiling and international security standards. This dissertation further shows how global events-particularly the 2010 FIFA World Cup, rather than the events of 9/11- catalyzed the development of South Africa’s PNR regime, underscoring the role of mega-events in legitimizing intensified surveillance under the guise of global security. Finally, this dissertation seeks to problematize the global proliferation of PNR technologies by Western states and international organizations as problematic because PNR technology is presented as a neutral technology. By examining the sociotechnical dimensions of PNR, this dissertation offers critical insight into the racial implications of global security practices and the circulation of surveillance technologies, particularly within the Global South. This dissertation makes three key contributions. First, it repositions border technologies like PNR as continuations of colonial and Apartheid modes of control rather than as novel post-9/11 innovations. Second, it contributes to security studies by revealing how international surveillance norms, often shaped by Western counterterrorism agendas, are exported without considering how they interact with existing racial hierarchies. As such, it is useful to consider PNR technology as a racializing assemblage. Third, it rethinks the ontological relationship between PNR and Race, highlighting the material role of technology in shaping racialized mobility, access, and exclusion - moving beyond identifying who is excluded by PNR technology towards an understanding of how certain bodies become marked by Race, and how these identities are constituted in the practice of PNR. This study challenges the neutrality of PNR and calls for a post-colonial reckoning with the racial histories embedded in contemporary PNR infrastructures. Theoretically, this research provides a materially oriented approach to PNR that includes a sustained engagement with post-colonialism and Race. Epistemologically, this research challenges dominant modes of knowledge production in the study of border technologies. Simply, this research reconsiders the nature of PNR as a security technology by examining its entanglement with Race, arguing that PNR does not merely reflect racial bias, but actively takes part in the construction and governance of racialized identities.