UNHCR and biometrics: refugees' rights in a legal no-man's land?

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Abstract

In the last few decades, governments have increasingly sought to relocate away from their territorial limits border practices that serve to identify, filter, and, if necessary, prevent foreigners’ crossings into their national space. This shift is facilitated by digital innovations that offer new opportunities for making migrants legible from afar, miles away from the border. Yet the turn to emerging technologies is not the preserve of governments. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has been using digital technologies, including biometrics data, for several decades. For UNHCR these are becoming an essential tool in accounting for the populations under its protection. This chapter explores this development. The first part surveys the deterritorialization of border controls in state practice with a focus on the enabling role of biometrics and digitization in that process. Then, it demonstrates how the use of biometrics by UNHCR maps onto these states’ practices. The second part considers the consequences of UNHCR’s practices surrounding the biometric registration of refugees, the risks posed by the collection of biometric data in the refugee context, and how the institutional and structural conditions in which UNHCR operates, especially with regard to consent, accountability mechanisms, and legal safeguards, may undermine refugees’ control over their data.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationLawless zones, rightless subjects
Subtitle of host publicationmigration, asylum and shifting border
EditorsSeyla Benhabib, Ayelet Shachar
Place of PublicationCambridge, UK
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP)
Pages228-243
Number of pages16
ISBN (Electronic)9781009512824
ISBN (Print)9781009512817, 9781009512848
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2025

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Copyright the Publisher 2025. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.

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