Maria Inês Costa (Managing Editor of this Blog and PhD student at the School of Law of University of Minho. FCT research scholarship holder – UI/BD/154522/2023)

A website launched just a few days before Valentine’s Day, with a Portuguese domain name entitled “Relationchip” garnered some attention in Portuguese social media for its innovative and controversial proposal to promote transparency in romantic relationships: i.e., through the use of two subcutaneous microchips and an app. As reported on the product’s website at the time of initial research for this post – providing information and a setup that differs from the one currently available –, “once implanted, the chips connect to the app and allow couples to access features such as real-time location tracking, password synchronisation and close contact alerts.”[1] Even though it raised suspicions that it might not be genuine, this product was being promoted on the website as being capable of reducing misunderstandings in relationships and strengthening intimacy with loved ones.

And, in fact, it was revealed that this device was fake, a fictitious product created by the Portuguese Association for Victim Support (APAV) to draw attention to controlling behaviour in romantic relationships, which is now part of young people’s daily lives through mobile phones and has become normalised: this is the information available on the website at the time of writing this article. For days, the fake product’s website was available, and criticism has already been levelled at the campaign’s content, given that it may have influenced or corroborated ideas about controlling one’s intimate partner through the use of new technologies, especially among young people.

Continue reading “Emerging technologies and current challenges – remarks on microchips and a surveillance society prompted by the fictional “Relationchip”” →

Afonso Matos (Masters in European Union Law from the School of Law of University of Minho)

Throughout 2025, the European Commission presented ten Omnibus packages with one central objective: to simplify European Union legislation, primarily by reducing the administrative costs and reporting obligations imposed on European companies, with a view to strengthening technological competitiveness.[1] This action favours faster procedures, less formalism and a reduction in regulatory fragmentation. However, the logic underlying this simplex, which is now presented as a “novelty”, has already been adopted in a different area, without much publicity, namely immigration and asylum policy. Here, the fluidity between criminal law and administrative law is a constant, with the legislator’s final option – in the name of simplification and speed – being to deal with all issues under the umbrella of administrative law. Observing this, experts analyse the phenomenon through the expression crimmigration.   

To understand this phenomenon, however, it is essential to revisit the evolution of the European immigration regime. The issue began to gain prominence in the 1980s, when the Schengen acquis led several Member States to abolish internal border controls, thus creating an area based on free movement and residence within European territory. And because this movement also included third-country nationals, it became clear that there was a need for coordinated external border control capable of responding to the expected increase in transnational crime.[2]

Continue reading “Crimmigration (or when regulatory simplification reveals its hidden face in immigration policy)” →