English

In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) a crisis of ongoing and protracted displacements and underfunding is forcing humanitarian actors to compromise on quality and coverage, making it harder for displaced people to rebuild their lives.

Access to formal banking systems would enable Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh to receive remittances through legal channels. This would bring benefits for the refugees, the humanitarian response, and Bangladesh’s economy and security.

More than ever before, digital technology is integral to the lives of forcibly displaced people and the humanitarian systems they interact with. The connected society has the potential to improve the day-to-day lives of millions of people on the move. Ensuring that access to this technology develops equally, and that both the benefits and risks in its use are considered carefully, involves complex challenges.

Digital technologies are transforming the way human mobility is experienced and managed across borders. This issue offers insights into the different ways in which technologies are changing displacement-related settings around the world: from predictive modelling to anticipate climate-induced migration, biometric data collection in humanitarian operations and asylum seekers’ experiences using the CBP One app in Mexico, to the use of mobile phone data by the Dutch and German authorities, and opportunities and challenges presented by the digital platform economy. These examples illustrate the often ambivalent nature of technology and the importance of context and nuance in understanding their implications.

Drawing on the authors’ joint activism on the rights of refugees and stateless people in India and Myanmar, this article considers how digital ID systems can be used to exclude minorities.