The technopolitics of database interoperability

We need to talk about the technopolitics of database interoperability. To date, databases remain crucial to datafied forms of public security, migration and border control. How databases are to speak to each other has cascading effects on the relation between power and knowledge, and upon how digital data, rights and subjectivities meet. This is especially the case in domains at the core of statecraft, where database interoperability affects both states' authority and individuals' freedom and well-being. In conversation with the contributions to this Special Theme, this Editorial suggests exploring three technopolitical dimensions that offer promising insights. That is, the relation between interoperability and political power; the sites where the shaping of interoperability takes place; and the contested practices accompanying interoperability's implementation. Ultimately, interoperability emerges as characterized by a continuous tension between simplification and multiplication, whose better understanding will allow us to grasp the emergence of complex socio-technical, legal and political configurations.