Risks and rewards in digital identity for refugees

UNHCR is exploring how digital identity systems can help refugees and people seeking asylum to achieve greater empowerment, protection and solutions. The Kaldor Centre’s Jane McAdam and Guy S Goodwin-Gill collaborated with UNSW Law colleagues in the fields of development and digital technologies to contribute to UNHCR’s Virtual Summit on Digital Identity for Refugees.

Highlighting the key issues, both technical and social, for the Summit to consider, our submission canvasses the potential complications and risk-reduction strategies required. Concerns are grouped as they relate to UNHCR’s identified themes: The Global Compact on Refugees and the refugee digital identity ecosystem; Privacy, confidentiality, data protection and security; and Emerging technologies and new developments

Our submission was co-authored by Caroline Compton (Research Associate) and Fleur Johns (Professor and Associate Dean (Research)) of UNSW Law’s Data Science in Humanitarianism: Confronting Novel Law and Policy Challenges Project, and Lyria Bennett Moses (Professor and Director) and Monika Zalnieriute (Research Fellow) at UNSW Law’s Allens Hub for Technology, Law and Innovation. 

Read the full submission.