Tracking Refugees Puts A Vulnerable Population At Risk - BuzzFeed News

efugees seeking aid from the UNHCR are not required to supply biometric data. The organization operates on a principle of informed consent; refugees are told what data is being collected and what it’s being used for before they submit to the process. There are also rules in place for informing refugees if a data breach has occurred, or if their data is being shared with third parties. “No one is obliged to register,” according to Schimmel, and, indeed, “there have been cases” in which refugees opted out of the biometric registration process, though Schimmel could not say how many. But the problem is, for refugees who are often in critical need of assistance when they arrive in a new country, privacy is not often the first thing on their minds. Katja Lindskov Jacobsen, author of The Politics of Humanitarian Technology, argues that what seems like a choice in theory is, in practice, non-optional. “Either you give it, or you don’t have assistance,” Jacobsen said of biometric data. “I think that’s the problem. European citizens can say no, if they want to.”