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• Digital technologies and borders: Joint submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism

Digital technologies and borders: Joint submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism

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Country/Region

18 June 2020

With Privacy International, Fundaciòn Datos Protegidos and Red en Defensa de los Derechos Digitales (R3D), we produced a joint submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, in response to their call for input on how digital technologies deployed in the context of border enforcement and administration reproduce, reinforce, and compound racial discrimination.

Joint submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance (pdf):

"We recommend the UN Special Rapporteur in her upcoming report to:

• analyse and assess the regulation and governance of digital technologies deployed in the context of border enforcement and administration;
• demand that such technologies should be used only in accordance with human rights standards, ensuring a legal framework, appropriate safeguards, effective oversight and remedial mechanisms are in place;
• call states to take nto account before implementing such measures the need to ensure that the deployment of new technologies is not discriminatory.
  examine how the deployment of these technologies are contributing to the marginalisation and further discrimination of people in vulnerable situations;
  underline the impact of these digital technologies on people at the border;
• consider adopting a wide approach to the understanding of border, to take into account border externalisation and border digitalisation considerations;
  consider the role of private companies in immigration enforcement and in particular in building digital borders;
• underline states’ accountability for financing border externalisation and using such financing to extend their border to other countries

This submission provides information on specific digital technologies in service of border enforcement and administration policies, as well as an overview of how such practices amount to serious violations of the right to privacy of migrants and as a result facilitate violations of other human rights of migrants, refugees, stateless people, non-citizens, and individuals or groups who are or who are perceived to be foreign."

For more information on the call for input, see: Race, Borders, and Digital Technologies: Call for input (UN, link)