A/HRC/48/Add.xx making, taking decisions on legal status out of the hands of government officials and placing them in the hands of machines or registrars administering biometric data kits. This can have the effect of de-facto denaturalization without due process or safeguards. The key considerations that must guide every nationality deprivation decision, including nondiscrimination, avoidance of statelessness, prohibition of arbitrariness, proportionality, necessity and legality,61 must also be considered when introducing centralized biometric ID systems. The introduction of digital governance structures risks deprivation of nationality by proxy measures, without due process – both intentionally and as a result of incomplete or flawed civil registration systems.62 During consultations, participants from Kenyan Nubian and Somali communities, and Rohingya communities have reported systematic difficulties securing digital identification, which then threatened their ability to gain formal employment and satisfy other basic needs. In some cases, digital identification regimes seemed to exacerbate statelessness by resulting in exclusion and non-recognition of ethnic minority groups. 4 Language Recognition 28. Although automated registration systems may be adopted to enhance bureaucratic efficiency, their technology can produce discriminatory outcomes. According to one submission, the German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge), “BAMF” uses TraLitA, an automatic transliteration program, to register Arabic names into the Latin alphabet63. However, the system is more error-prone for applicants whose names originate from the Maghreb region, at a success rate of 35% in contrast to 85 to 90% for names of Iraqi or Syrian applicants. Arabic-speaking applicants may also be subject to a dialect analysis upon registration. BAMF uses a software to analyse the applicant’s spoken language sample to determine the plausibility of stated national origin. This software relies on the Arabic-Levantine dialect, 64 raising serious concerns that the software’s “susceptibility to errors has never been checked by a specialist supervisory control and cannot be understood by external actors with no recourse to the algorithms used.” 65 The obvious risk is that speakers of Arabic dialects not represented by the software may erroneously be deemed non-credible, and therefore excluded from legal and other protections on a discriminatory basis. 5 Mobile Data Extraction and Social Media Intelligence on Migrant and Refugee Populations 29. Governments are increasingly targeting the electronic devices of migrants and refugees to verify the information they provide to border and immigration authorities. Officials are able to do so using mobile extraction tools that download data from smartphones, including contacts, call data, text messages, stored files, location information, and more.66 In some cases, officials go so far as to deprive migrants and refugees of their personal devices. One submission reported that “intercepted migrants are regularly stripped of their belongings by Croatian authorities[,] particularly passports and other forms of ID, cell phones and power banks[,] and are summarily expelled to Bosnia and Herzegovina.”67 30. In Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Norway, and the United Kingdom (UK), laws allow for the seizure of mobile phones from asylum or migration applicants from which data are then extracted and used as part of asylum procedures. 68 These practices constitute a serious, disproportionate interference with migrants and refugees’ right to privacy, on the basis of immigration status and, in effect, national origin. Furthermore, the presumption that 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 10 Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion et al, “Principles on Deprivation of Nationality as a National Security Measure” (2020) available at: https://files.institutesi.org/PRINCIPLES.pdf. Ibid., Principle 10. Geselleschaft für Freiheitsrechte (“GFF”), Submission. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid.; Privacy International (“PI”) et al., Submission. Border Violence Monitoring Network (“BVMN”), Submission. PI et al., Submission.