Our Latest Articles
Promise or hype: Provides Blockchain a Safe Identity?
In two articles, Monique J. Morrow explores the opportunities of safe identity storage which blockchain technology offers and Karl Steinacker underlines the importance of State regulation for technological development.
Real Time Data: Uganda Identity Verification Exercise
UNHCR and the authorities in Uganda are currently undertaking a massive identity verification exercise using biometrics to register more than one million refugees. You are now able to follow the operation by looking at the Real Time Verification Dashboard.
UNHCR and the pursuit of international protection: accountability through technology?
Ms. Katja Lindskov Jacobsen and Ms. Kristin Bergtora Sandvik just published their article “UNHCR and the pursuit of international protection: accountability through technology?” in Third World Quarterly.
Cars and Privacy
The online tech publication The Register is discussing the issue of data protection from a different and unusual angle: What does the advent of connected and autonomous vehicles (CAV) mean for privacy? Farfetched? We don’t think so and invite you to read more here.
Bridging the identity divide – Is Portable User-Centric Identity Management the Answer?
Who takes care of the tens of millions of refugees, forcibly displaced and stateless persons who either cannot safely approach their government, or have no government that recognizes them as citizens?
RETS Providing vital communications in refugee situations
The Refugee Emergency Telecommunications Sector (RETS) is the mechanism through which UNHCR coordinates the communications technology response in refugee situations. Watch the clip here on what it is. If you would like more information, contact [email protected]
A Mobile Messaging App facilitates access to justice
The European Court of Human Rights recently recognized that messages between detained asylum seekers and their lawyer on a popular mobile messaging application met formal requirements for lodging an application to the Court.
Digital Identity – Why It Matters and Why It’s Important We Get It Right
At the World Economic Forum, Leaders have called for greater multi-stakeholder co-operation on digital identity and announced their commitment to strengthen collective action on this agenda.
The WhatsApp Wedding
The clip WhatsApp Wedding was produced in 2015 for UNHCR. Refugees Plus, a new digital media platform run by a network of young refugee journalists, has posted it recently – for us the occasion to share it here with our readers.
42 seconds on digital identity
How digital identity will empower refugees by Kelly Clement, UNHCR Deputy High Commissioner.
Sharing Internet in Uganda to Save and Protect Lives
The successful UNHCR-led Refugee Emergency Telecommunications Sector (RETS) provide shared internet connectivity, security communications and user support services to the humanitarian community in Uganda.
The digital debate
Is biometrics appropriate in refugee situations? Can digital technology resolve problems related to the lack of identity papers? These and other questions were debated in two newspaper articles published by the German newspaper Die Zeit recently.