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Data protection and privacy

When implementing digital tools, UNHCR and partners must consider a range of potential data protection and privacy risks that could impact forcibly displaced and stateless persons as well as UNHCR and partner staff. 

In case of misuse, risks faced by affected people may include threats to individual security, legal status, financial situation, access to essential services and the right to privacy. Where digital literacy is low, risks may also relate to a lack of understanding about online presence, privacy and confidentiality concerns, terms of use, and how their data will be stored and used.

For example, the decision to use technology to monitor social media content for information risks for the purposes of monitoring, detection, analysis and/or as a response require an assessment of the balance between avoiding mass surveillance of people’s private communications or of generalised monitoring of social media platforms, and the need to protect people from harmful content.

RESOURCE

‘Connecting With Confidence: Managing Digital Risks to Refugee Connectivity’.

Connecting With Confidence: Managing Digital Risks to Refugee Connectivity provides additional information on online threats and digital risks – including online censorship, cyber threats, data protection risks, disinformation and privacy harm. This research explores how to deliver ‘connectivity as aid’ in a dignified way while managing digital risks to refugees. It draws from an extensive literature review and on-the-ground fieldwork in displacement contexts in Uganda and Kenya.

UNHCR’s Digital Transformation Strategy 2022-2026 commits the Agency to ensure its use of emerging digital technologies is consistent with emerging ethical, human rights due diligence and protection principles. To reflect this strategic commitment UNHCR is also aligning with the UN Principles on the Ethical Use of Artificial Intelligence (2022) and the emerging draft UN System-wide Guidance on human rights due diligence and digital technologies. Consideration can also be given to the IASC Operational Guidance on Data Responsibility in Humanitarian Action. When UNHCR and organisations engage in the use of such technology, considerations should be made towards the following:

  • Human Rights Due Diligence
  • Artificial Intelligence and Ethics
  • Data Protection Impact Assessment
  • Partnerships and Third-Parties