Migration Management and Digital Identity

• In Event: Managing Migrants and Refugees in Times of Crisis

Abstract

While the management of migration is not new, the techniques that states employ to manage migration are quickly evolving with the digitization of bureaucracies, algorithmic decision making, and digital identities. Torpey (2000) identified the invention of the passport as key to state formation by embracing (and controlling) citizens, leading to the state’s monopolization of legitimate movement. States also introduced universal birth registration and civic registries of the population, many of which are being transitioned into digital systems. Digital identity includes any initiatives that use digital technology to create, manage, or authenticate identity documents, such as national IDs, birth certificates, passports, visas, and other legal documents. The digitization of identity is part of a larger trend in the digitization
of government aimed at making bureaucracies more efficient. While the promise of digital identity includes more comprehensive registries, more secure documents, efficient services, and better statistics, human rights lawyers are concerned about increased surveillance, the invasion of privacy, and the vulnerability to hacking. Advocates argue that digital identity should be managed by the citizens themselves, effectively putting individuals in control of the information that governments collect on them. However, migrants and refugees often get left out of digital identity because they either do not qualify for national IDs or are included in separate refugee registries, which can mean that migrants and refugees are excluded from other government services. This paper examines five emerging policy areas at the intersection of digital identity and migration management: humanitarian, banking, border management, security, and diaspora. For example, the humanitarian sector, particularly UNHCR, has adopted digital identity programs like iris scans to manage cash-based aid and repatriation packages. Similarly, banks and telecommunication companies are integrating digital identity into their services in ways that exclude migrants and refugees from the economy or society at large. Systems using digital identity at the border—like facial recognition, fingerprints, ePassports, and visa databases—are being piloted around the world but often rely on the interoperability of each database, network, and hardware. Security actors are using digital technologies to verify migrants’ identities, in addition to performing searches of their online footprint, social media, and SMS contacts. Finally, states are engaging their diaspora using digital identity to facilitate remittances or to vote from abroad. By analyzing these five policy areas, I argue that digital identity is a new and powerful technology used by the state to more fully control the legitimate movement of both its citizens and non-citizen residents. In addition, I theorize that the digitalization of migration management is another step in the state formation process, whereby data and decisions become more centralized in state bureaucracies. While digital identity has some emancipatory potential to include migrants and refugees in state systems, the drive to digitalize mirrors the drive to modernize “backward” states in the Global South in the 20th century. This paper is based on interviews with policymakers in governments, international organizations, and NGOs in four countries (Sweden, Denmark, Greece, and Zimbabwe) and analysis of new legislation, policy documents, and project evaluations to show how digital identity is changing migration management.

Author

• Nicholas R. Micinski, University of Maine