B@lltring is the codename for an EU migration-control operation. Almost nothing about it is public. MEP Özlem Demirel (The Left/DEU) wants the Council to reveal who sets its “priority targets” and how it uses the data. She laid out her concerns in an interview with EU Perspectives.
The term B@lltring appears in a written parliamentary question to the Council of the EU. It describes an intelligence-based police operation that targets irregular migration networks, led by France and involving several EU member states. The operation relies on a tool called B-Insight to analyse and share intelligence data. Beyond that reference, little else is public.
Demirel filed her question months ago. The Council’s response, when it came, did not clarify the operation’s scope, its legal basis, or how it selects its targets.
Migration as security issue
For Demirel, the issue goes beyond transparency. It concerns the broader shift in how migration is framed and governed within the EU. “I am one of those who do not criminalise migration. Migration is, first and foremost, something entirely normal in human society. I reject the stigmatisation of migrants as something negative,” she said.
The MEP argues that Brussels increasingly treats migration as a security threat. She sees it instead as a social and political phenomenon shaped by global inequality, conflict, and climate crises. “As EU member states, we also bear a particular responsibility because we often contribute to creating the very causes of displacement ourselves through wars, climate crises, or other emergencies.”
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According to Demirel, digital systems used in migration governance risk shifting the focus from protection to automated exclusion. “People and the reasons for their flight are automatically screened in order to find reasons for deporting them as quickly as possible.”
She also raises concerns about the treatment of vulnerable individuals in administrative and investigative procedures. “These processes involve interrogations carried out in highly sensitive situations and with extremely vulnerable individuals, often in ways that are degrading and inhumane.” She also warns of unlawful data exchanges between EU agencies: “There is the unlawful sharing of data between EU agencies such as Europol and Frontex.”
Priority targets
A key element of Demirel’s parliamentary question concerns the definition of so-called “priority targets” within B@lltring. “We are interested not only in the kinds of data being collected, but also in who defines the priority targets because we believe that this, too, can be politically motivated.”
The concern is that authorities may expand migration-related offences into broader criminal categories. Individuals could then become targets of cross-border enforcement based on contested classifications.
She illustrates this with a scenario from the Mediterranean: “A group of people seeking protection crosses the Mediterranean in an inflatable boat. Someone in the group takes the helm simply because otherwise there would be nobody to do so. In the EU, such individuals are prosecuted as smugglers.” Moreover, “the data basis for such prosecutions needs to be questioned, as does the motivation behind the target selection.”
Digital surveillance
Reports surrounding B@lltring suggest a focus on encrypted communications and darknet-related activity. For Demirel, however, the broader issue is the normalisation of mass surveillance tools in migration and security policy. “My position is that indiscriminate surveillance and the mass scanning of communication data must remain prohibited.”
She acknowledges that courts have challenged or discontinued certain surveillance tools in the past. But she argues that authorities increasingly bypass legal safeguards. “There are already legal frameworks in place to protect against such practices, but these laws are repeatedly circumvented or ignored: the fundamental rights are therefore continually under attack,” she said.
Data sharing is not caring
Another concern raised in the inquiry is the growing exchange of data between national authorities and EU agencies such as Europol and Frontex. To illustrate the risks, Demirel describes a hypothetical case involving a legally resident journalist who is wrongly flagged as a security concern due to automated analysis and flawed datasets shared between agencies.
The consequences, in her example, are severe. They include repeated border checks, delayed citizenship procedures, loss of employment opportunities, bank account freezes, and detention during travel – all based on incorrect or unverified data that continues circulating across systems.
The data continues to circulate between authorities because deletion and correction mechanisms function inadequately.
— Özlem Demirel, MEP (The Left/DEU)
“It later turns out that the original suspicion was based on mistaken identity. Nevertheless, the data continues to circulate between authorities because deletion and correction mechanisms function inadequately. This shows that such systems can have serious consequences for individuals,” she explained.
What makes B@lltring unusual is its limited public footprint and the institutional opacity surrounding it. There are no detailed public briefings, no comprehensive operational reports, and no clear explanation of participating states or outcomes in the public domain. The only certainty is that the name appears in EU institutional documents, and that just one MEP has formally questioned its legal and operational framework. Months after Demirel filed her question, that silence still stands. The Council has yet to say who runs B@lltring, what data it collects, or how it defines a target.
