A/HRC/48/Add.xx ensure that refugees can access assistance and protection services without the use of biometric technology, where necessary, and to address the risk of error or failure in its use. 38. Collection of vast amounts of data on migrants and refugees creates serious issues and possible human rights violations related to data sharing and access, particularly in settings such as refugee camps where there are stark power differentials between UN agencies, international NGOs and the affected communities. Although exchanging data on humanitarian crises or biometric identification is often presented as a way to increase efficiency and inter-agency and inter-state cooperation, benefits from the collection do not accrue equally. Data collection and the use of new technologies, particularly in contexts characterized by steep power differentials, raise issues of informed consent and the ability to opt out. In various forced migration and humanitarian aid settings, such as Mafraq, Jordan, biometric technologies are being used in the form of iris scanning in lieu of identity cards in exchange for food rations. 98 However, conditioning food access on data collection removes any semblance of choice or autonomy on the part of refugees—consent cannot freely be given where the alternative is starvation. Indeed, an investigation in the Azraq refugee camp99 revealed that most refugees interviewed were uncomfortable with such technological experiments but felt that they could not refuse if they wanted to eat. The goal or promise of improved service delivery cannot justify the levels of implicit coercion underlying regimes such as these.100 39. Consultations highlighted concerns among Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and India that their data may be shared in ways that increase their risk of refoulement, or shared with the government of Myanmar, increasing their vulnerability to human rights violations in the event of forcible and other forms of return of these groups to their country of origin. A serious concern in this context is that of “function creep” where data collected in one context (e.g. monitoring low level fraud) is shared and reused for different purposes (e.g. to populate registries of potential terror suspects),101 with no procedural and substantive protections for the individuals whose data are being shared and repurposed. According to UNHCR, it did not collect information that could amount to consent voluntarily to repatriate, and it secured consent from refugees to share their data with the Government of Myanmar in order to verify their right of return. 40. In some cases, the very nature of data collection can produce profoundly discriminatory outcomes. Fleeing genocide in Myanmar, more than 742,000 stateless Rohingya refugees crossed over to Bangladesh since August 2017. 102 The UNHCR and Bangladeshi government registration system did not offer “Rohingya” as an ethnic identity option, instead using “Myanmar nationals,” a term that Myanmar does not recognize, and which does not capture the reality that Rohingya are stateless due to having been arbitrarily deprived of their right to Myanmar nationality.103 As one submission notes, categorization using this unrecognizable term on their digital identity cards amounts to a form of “symbolic annihilation of the Rohingya” required to carry and use these cards.104 UNHCR reported that Rohingya refugees accepted this approach and were consulted in its adoption. 41. Exclusion of refugees and asylum seekers from essential basic services through digital technology systems also occurs outside of refugee camp settings. One submission provides an example from Germany. Under the German Asylum Seekers Benefit Act, undocumented persons have the same right to health care as asylum seekers.105 However, the social welfare 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 See Fleur Johns, “Data, Detection, and the Redistribution of the Sensible in International Law” (2017). See also https://medium.com/unhcr-innovation-service/managing-risk-to-innovate-in-unhcr91fe9294755b. http://www.irinnews.org/analysis/2016/05/18/eye-spy-biometric-aid-system-trials-jordan. See https://www.unhcr.org/innovation/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Space-and-imaginationrethinking-refugees%E2%80%99-digital-access_WEB042020.pdf; https://www.cigionline.org/publications/data-protection-and-digital-agency-refugees. Mirca Madianou, Submission. https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/rohingya-emergency.html. Mirca Madianou, “Technocolonialism: Digital Innovation and Data Practices in the Humanitarian Response to Refugee Crises” (2019). Madianou, Submission. PICUM, Submission. 13