Digital border governance: a human rights-based approach

New and emerging digital technologies are increasingly tested and deployed within border governance.

These new technologies include:

• drones, infrared cameras, surveillance towers and biometric technologies used at physical borders;
• data collection and exchange, and the development of largescale and interoperable databases;
• algorithmic risk assessments within applications such as for visas and removal decisions;
• technologies such as electronic monitoring as ‘alternatives’ to detention.

This side event launches a joint study between the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the University of Essex funded by Switzerland which analyses the manifold and cumulative human rights effects of digital border technologies. The side event focuses on the report’s recommendations on how states, businesses and UN entities can ensure that a human rights-based approach is taken to the use of new and emerging digital technologies in the context of border governance.