York U awarded $2.5M to investigate, mitigate impact of increasing digital surveillance on refugees
Toronto, July 22, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- In a climate where walls and detention centres are built, border enforcement agencies expanded and new border control technologies adopted, there is a risk of global displacement, already at a historic high, skyrocketing. Associate Professor Sean Rehaag of Osgoode Hall Law School, along with an international collaboration, will work to understand, mitigate and respond to a burgeoning refugee crisis through a $2.5 million Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Partnership Grant announced today.
The project, Algorithmic Justice for Refugees Research Network (AJRRN), will investigate the inequitable and rights-violating impact of artificial intelligence and new digital technologies increasingly used in border control on refugees, and others on the move, and develop innovative, rights-enhancing and transparent alternatives.
SSHRC Partnership Grants provide support for multi-year partnerships to advance research, research training and/or knowledge mobilization in the social sciences and humanities.
“Professor Rehaag and his international partners are confronting one of the defining social justice issues of our time, and York is proud to stand behind them. A project of this scale grows out of sustained investment in interdisciplinary research, and the Centre for Refugee Studies, one of York's Organized Research Units, provided the foundation of expertise and support that made it possible,” says York Interim President and Vice-Chancellor Lisa Philipps.
New border control technologies, including biometric systems, automated decision-making tools, lie-detection technologies and drones, often come with limited oversight and an exacerbation of longstanding refugee and immigration decision-making inequalities, while private sector interests and investments drive further border security developments.
The project is a global, interdisciplinary effort, a response to the rise of these technologies that could increase human rights violations and create a refugee crisis. In 2024, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimated that 120 million people were forced to move due to conflict, human rights violations and other disruptions, and that number is expected to rise.
“We are at a crucial juncture when it comes to border control and technology. There is a risk of further inequalities in the way refugee and immigration claims are handled at a time when there are more refugees around the world today than at any point since World War II,” says Rehaag, director of the Refugee Law Laboratory (RLL), which will host the seven-year AJRRN project. The RLL operates within Osgoode and the Centre of Refugee Studies at York University.
The range of technological experiments happening globally directly impact refugees and the movement of displaced people. They include big data predictions about population movements in the Mediterranean, automated decision-making for United Kingdom immigration applications, photo matching technologies to detect program integrity concerns in Canada’s refugee system, AI lie-detectors at European airports, and drones and other automated surveillance devices deployed at the Mexico-US Border.
When states conduct these technological experiments in their efforts to increase border control, they often fail to consider the far-reaching human rights impacts, says Rehaag.
“With the advance of rapid technological development and disruption, rising xenophobia, racism and far-right nationalism, there is a proliferation of anti-migrant rhetoric and policies, the rights of refugees and immigrants is more precarious than ever. This is not the first wave of such rhetoric and policies, but it occurs at an especially dangerous moment as it coincides with dramatic advancements in new technologies that amplify xenophobic rhetoric, facilitate implementing restrictive policies and encourage the private sector to invest billions of dollars in an expanding international border surveillance industry.”
The partnership will bring together a diverse network spanning multiple continents. Academic co-applicants are from more than 12 universities, including Al-Quds University, King's College London, Toronto Metropolitan University, Université Toulouse 1 Capitole, University College Dublin, University of Copenhagen, University of New South Wales, University of Queensland, University of the Witwatersrand, University of Warwick and the University of Waterloo. Community partners are also diverse with a global reach from the Canadian Council for Refugees to Red en Defensa de los Derechos Digitales in Mexico to Community Creativity for Development in Uganda.
It will be the world’s first global research network to facilitate interdisciplinary and cross-jurisdictional research on law, technology and forced migration, which will happen in collaboration between York University and two core partners: Migration + Tech Monitor in the United States and the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at University of New South Wales in Australia. The AJRRN will integrate expertise from legal scholars, technologists, community organizations and individuals with lived experience of displacement.
The project has two complementary and overlapping streams of research.
One overarching goal, under the leadership of Associate Director of the Refugee Law Laboratory, Petra Molnar, is to critique digital border governance through human rights lenses, including by analyzing government contracts with private actors in the tech sector, exploring biases encoded in border-control technologies, mapping the use of these technologies, and identifying litigation strategies and oversight mechanisms to challenge harmful practices.
The second, led by Rehaag, will be to advance rights-enhancing innovations, developing open-source legal technology and data analytics tools that empower displaced communities, advocates, and decision-makers to counter systemic inequities.
“The project will expand research expertise for one of the world’s most pressing societal challenges, how to best respond to growing numbers of asylum seekers and other displaced people, at a time of dramatic technological change and growing xenophobia,” says Rehaag.
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Sandra McLean York University sandramc@yorku.ca
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