As we approach the International Migration Review Forum (IMRF), set to assess progress on the Global Compact for Migration, technology is taking centre stage. While governments expand digital surveillance, migrant women and grassroots organisations are using it to build networks of care, resistance, and survival.
by Antonella Napolitano
Fernanda feels a sense of relief when she is told she will be released from the detention center she has been held in for weeks. But that relief is short-lived: she is then informed she must wear an ankle monitor to track her movements and will have to check in through an app that uses her phone’s camera to scan her face, once, twice, many times a day.
Tired after a long day in her migration journey, Beatriz looks for a place to spend the night but worries about her safety. She opens an app and checks an online map with information about safe places to sleep. Unsure what she can afford with the Honduran lempiras she has left, she uses the same app to check the conversion into Mexican pesos.
Women and girls often face more dangerous situations and severe consequences during their migration journeys. These gender inequalities are intensified by the lack of access to information and essential services including reproductive health and mental health support.
It does not have to be that way. As we approach the International Migration Review Forum (IMRF) to review the progress of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM), the role of technology takes centre stage. But it does so with a striking contrast at its core : on the one hand, governments are using technology and data-intensive systems to shape borders into a network of surveillance that stretches across time and space, which migrants experience as a continuous presence. On the other hand, people on the move are using, repurposing, and building tools to create counter-networks of resistance and care.
Surveillance, Control, and the Expansion of the “Everywhere Border”
Technology can support and mitigate harm: feminist organizations like the Mexico-based Colibres provide access to technology for migrant communities, working specifically with women and girls in conditions of vulnerability. SororApp is one of their tools designed to support autonomy for women in transit, connecting them with relevant services tailored to their specific needs, such as translation, access to reproductive health, and psychological support.
These groups continue to grow and sustain their work despite a strong counter-tide: in the last two decades, governments’ use of technology has been funded and developed with a focus on security and control, resulting in criminalisation of people on the move. Technology is making borders ubiquitous, with digital tools often framed by governments and companies as solutions.
Borders technologies can be used to conduct risk profiling in visa applications, often processed by opaque algorithms. These risk scores, influenced by nationality, age, gender, and economic status, can preemptively deny entry to individuals who have not even left their home countries, automating bias and embedding inequality at the very first step of mobility.
Technologies can include forecasting tools: while humanitarian actors can use them to better prepare assistance to displaced people, these systems can also lead to increased border controls and pushbacks.
Technology is making borders ubiquitous, with digital tools often framed by governments and companies as solutions.
The result is an infrastructure that extends borders into countries of origin and transit countries, as well as into life after arrival and even beyond the legal status, expanding and deepening surveillance. Researchers at the US-Mexico border have described it as the “Everywhere Border” to capture its all-encompassing nature.
Since the adoption of the Global Compact for Migration in 2016, Global North countries have increased their spending on border technology. In the USA, the Biden and Trump administrations have financed expansion of surveillance infrastructure at the US-Mexico border. In the European Union, civil society studies point to a trend of growing investment in border management throughout the period 2021-2027, with technology taking the form of infrastructure, equipment and creation of IT databases, as well as funding for border externalisation r in non-EU countries (with further increases expected in the next EU’s budget cycle.)
Though these tools are justified in the name of “security” or “efficiency”, studies show that they don’t improve either, while deepening racialized inequalities instead. There is substantial evidence that predictive analytics are informed by racial bias and discrimination, creating “automated” systems of violence that affect people on the move and racialised communities.
The surveillance regime of the “everywhere border” is expanding, but it is not uncontested. Across borders, migrants are repurposing the very technologies that monitor them to build solidarity, expose abuses, and advocate for their rights. This points to the possibility of a reorientation: these tools can be a force for protection when deployed with the rights and welfare of migrants at the centre, in the service of fair and efficient migration.
Reclaiming Technology: Migrant-Led Tools for Care, Safety, and Agency
Technology is not just a way to provide support but to understand and exercise agency throughout the migration journey: Colibres, for instance, also provides training to women and girls on the use of open source technologies, ensuring access to information, knowledge and virtual communications tools. Additionally, through cooperatives, they provide access to phone and internet services, emphasising the importance of connectivity and communications for people on the move.
In Southeast Asia, the app Golden Dreams, designed by and for migrant workers, crowdsources and shares information that is critical for their labour migration journeys. Created as an app to upload CVs and find jobs, its use was expanded by workers themselves to rate ethical recruitment agencies that do not charge fees addressing a major concern that has not been properly tackled by governments. They also provide training specifically targeted at women over 35, who may have had less exposure to technology, so that they can use those systems safely.
Technology is an important part of everyone’s lives but deploying it when life and dignity are at stake is a choice, rather than an inevitable one. If that choice is made, it must centre on the principles of dignity, safety, and cooperation, the same ones enshrined in the Global Compact for Migration.
This means pushing for transparency in governance, strong safeguards, and inclusive policymaking rooted in human rights.
Technology is not just a way to provide support but to understand and exercise agency throughout the migration journey.
Privacy protections are fundamental not only for addressing harms but also for creating systems that protect people by design. Establishing clear data protection frameworks and conducting rights impact assessments before deploying data-intensive systems can limit the scope and use of technologies at borders with narrow, specific mandates.
The right to data erasure and the ability to opt-out of data collection are two examples that would allow people on the move to retain control over their migration experience.
In Europe, civil society has called for a ban on the use of predictive analytics that reinforce bias or lead to discriminatory practices.
There is still much to do to ensure that people on the move can fully enjoy rights and exercise agency in their migration journey. Drawing on these examples that centre people on the move, the challenge for policymakers, migrants’ rights advocates, and tech workers is to meaningfully support these efforts: by creating legal frameworks that protect the dignity of people on the move, redirecting funding towards digital infrastructure that supports organising, and advancing more transparent and accountable uses of technology.
Antonella Napolitano is a researcher, writer, and tech policy expert. Her work focuses on the impact of technology on society and human rights, particularly in relation to migration, welfare, and reproductive rights. She is the author of articles and reports on the use of technology in border externalisation, the digital identity of refugees, and alternatives to detention.
She was Senior Policy Officer and Network Coordinator at the global human rights organisation Privacy International, where she developed the workstream on migration and surveillance technologies. Previously, she worked at the Italian Coalition for Civil Liberties and Rights, where she co-founded the media outlet Open Migration and led the Civil Liberties in the Digital Age programme. Earlier in her career, she served as Europe Editor at Personal Democracy Media, covering civic technology and political participation across Europe.
She is a Forum Member at the European Philanthropic Initiative for Migration (EPIM), Europe’s largest and longest-standing philanthropic collaborative focused on migration and inclusion.
