A/75/590 court for their discriminatory potential. 116 Canada, Switzerland and the United Kingdom also use automated or algorithmic decision-making “for selecting refugees and resettling them”. 117 The introduction of new technologies impacts both the processes and outcomes associated with decisions that would otherwise be made by administrative tribunals, immigration officers, border agents, legal analysts and other officials responsible for the administration of immigration and refugee systems, border enforcement and refugee response management. There is a serious lack of clarity surrounding how courts will interpret administrative law principles such as natural justice, procedural fairness and standard of review where an automated decision system is concerned or where an opaque use of technology operates. 41. In some contexts, the nature of technological experimentation relates to the collection of genetic data, whose purposes are justified on tenuous grounds, but raise serious and concrete human rights concerns. One submission described the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), a forensic DNA database in the United States through which individual states and the federal Government collect, store and share genetic information. 118 Since January 2020, the federal Government has been collecting DNA from any person in immigration custody. 119 What this means is that “for the first time, CODIS will warehouse the genetic data of people who have not been accused of any crime, for crime detection purposes”, severing the long-standing prerequisite of prior alleged criminal conduct to compel DNA collection. 120 Non-citizens in immigration custody are not criminals as a rule. 121 In fact, the vast majority of immigration infractions for which an immigrant is detained are civil in n ature. 122 As regards asylum seekers, who form an increasingly large proportion of the detained non -citizen population, both international and domestic laws expressly allow them to enter the United States to claim the right to refuge. 123 The submission rightly points out that the new immigration policy expanding CODIS moves the United States towards constructing a “genetic panopticon”, whose purposes and effects may well be discriminatory. CODIS risks turning into a dystopian tool of genetic surveillance that will “encompass anyone within United States borders, including ordinary Americans neither convicted nor even suspected of criminal conduct”, threatening democracy and human rights, 124 including on the basis of national origin. 42. As COVID-19 has further incentivized and legitimized surveillance and other technologies targeting refugees and migrants, these groups have been subjected to further experimentation. 125 One example is the experimental deployment of an immunity passport called “COVI-Pass” in West Africa. 126 A product of partnership between Mastercard and the Gavi Alliance, a private-public alliance for vaccination, this digital initiative combines biometrics, contact tracing, cashless payments, national identification and law enforcement. 127 Not only do such technologies operate outside human rights impact assessments and regulations, they also risk threatening __________________ 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 18/25 See www.foxglove.org.uk/news/home-office-says-it-will-abandon-its-racist-visa-algorithm-nbspafter-we-sued-them. Submission by Maat for Peace, Development and Human Rights; and submission by A na Beduschi, citing Petra Molnar and Lex Gill, “Bots at the gate: a human rights analysis of automated decision-making in Canada’s immigration and refugee system”. Submission by Daniel I. Morales, Natalie Ram and Jessica L. Roberts. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Submission by Amnesty International. Ibid. Ibid. 20-14872