A/HRC/48/Add.xx individual around data access if to do otherwise would “prejudice effective immigration control.”85 These rights include the rights to object to and restrict the processing of one’s data and the right to have one’s personal data deleted.86 The UK’s amended Police Act empowers not only police but also immigration officers to interfere with mobile phones and other electronic devices belonging to asylum seekers.87 Going far beyond even the data carrier evaluation permitted in Germany, the UK Crime and Courts Act of 2013 enables police and immigration officers to carry out secret surveillance measures, place bugging devices, and hack and search mobile phones and computers.88 The individuals affected will disproportionately be targeted on national origin grounds when national origin should never be a basis for diminished privacy and other rights. B. Discriminatory Structures 35. In her previous report, the Special Rapporteur showed how the design and use of different emerging digital technologies can produce racially discriminatory structures that undermine enjoyment of human rights for certain groups, on account of their race, ethnicity or national origin, in combination with other characteristics. She urged that emerging digital technologies should be understood as capable of creating and sustaining racial and ethnic exclusion in systemic or structural terms. In this sub-Section, the Special Rapporteur highlights ways in which migrants, refugees, stateless persons and related groups are being subjected to technological interventions that expose them to a broad range of actual and potential rights violations on the basis of actual or perceived national origin or immigration status. 1 Surveillance Humanitarianism and Surveillance Asylum 36. Commentators have cautioned of the rise of “surveillance humanitarianism”89, whereby increased reliance on digital technologies in service provision and other bureaucratic processes perversely result in the exclusion of refugees and asylum seekers from essential basic necessities such as access to food. 90 Even a misspelled name can result in “bureaucratic chaos” and accusations of providing false information, slowing down what is already a slow asylum process.91 Potential harms around data privacy are often latent and violent in conflict zones, where data compromised or leaked to a warring faction could result in retribution for those perceived to be on the wrong side of the conflict.92 37. In this regard, one submission highlights the dangers associated with the growing use of digital technologies to manage aid distribution.93 In refugee camps in Afghanistan, iris registration has reportedly been used as a pre-requisite for receiving assistance for returning Afghan refugees.94 The impact of collecting, digitizing and storing the refugees’ iris can be grave when systems are flawed or abused.95 It has also been documented that such biometric surveillance tools have led to system aversion and loss of access to goods and services for survival.96 This submission noted, for example, the failure of technology in Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh that resulted in the denial of food rations to refugees.97 UNHCR reported to the Special Rapporteur that its policy is that safeguards should be in place to 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 12 PICUM, Submission. Ibid. GFF, Submission. Ibid. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/11/opinion/data-humanitarian-aid.html. Beduschi, Submission. Mark Latonero et al., Digital Identity in the Migration & Refugee Context: Italy Case Study (April 2019). https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/11/opinion/data-humanitarian-aid.html. Amnesty International, Submission. Ibid. Ibid. citing A/HRC/39/29. Amnesty International, Submission. Ibid.