Paper by Haodong Qi & Tuba Bircan: “Google Trends (GT) collate the volumes of search keywords over time and by geographical location. Such data could, in theory, provide insights into people’s ex ante intentions to migrate, and hence be useful for predictive analysis of future migration. Empirically, however, the predictive power of GT is sensitive, it may vary depending on geographical context, the search keywords selected for analysis, as well as Google’s market share and its users’ characteristics and search behavior, among others. Unlike most previous studies attempting to demonstrate the benefit of using GT for forecasting migration flows, this article addresses a critical but less discussed issue: when GT cannot enhance the performances of migration models. Using EUROSTAT statistics on first-time asylum applications and a set of push-pull indicators gathered from various data sources, we train three classes of gravity models that are commonly used in the migration literature, and examine how the inclusion of GT may affect models’ abilities to predict refugees’ destination choices. The results suggest that the effects of including GT are highly contingent on the complexity of different models. Specifically, GT can only improve the performance of relatively simple models, but not of those augmented by flow Fixed-Effects or by Auto-Regressive effects. These findings call for a more comprehensive analysis of the strengths and limitations of using GT, as well as other digital trace data, in the context of modeling and forecasting migration. It is our hope that this nuanced perspective can spur further innovations in the field, and ultimately bring us closer to a comprehensive modeling framework of human migration…(More)”.
AI translation is jeopardizing Afghan asylum claims
Article by Andrew Deck: “In 2020, Uma Mirkhail got a firsthand demonstration of how damaging a bad translation can be.
A crisis translator specializing in Afghan languages, Mirkhail was working with a Pashto-speaking refugee who had fled Afghanistan. A U.S. court had denied the refugee’s asylum bid because her written application didn’t match the story told in the initial interviews.
In the interviews, the refugee had first maintained that she’d made it through one particular event alone, but the written statement seemed to reference other people with her at the time — a discrepancy large enough for a judge to reject her asylum claim.
After Mirkhail went over the documents, she saw what had gone wrong: An automated translation tool had swapped the “I” pronouns in the woman’s statement to “we.”
Mirkhail works with Respond Crisis Translation, a coalition of over 2,500 translators that provides interpretation and translation services for migrants and asylum seekers around the world. She told Rest of World this kind of small mistake can be life-changing for a refugee. In the wake of the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan, there is an urgent demand for crisis translators working in languages such as Pashto and Dari. Working alongside refugees, these translators can help clients navigate complex immigration systems, including drafting immigration forms such as asylum applications. But a new generation of machine translation tools is changing the landscape of this field — and adding a new set of risks for refugees…(More)”.
Harnessing Data Innovation for Migration Policy: A Handbook for Practitioners
Report by IOM: “The Practitioners’ Handbook provides first-hand insights into why and how non-traditional data sources can contribute to better understanding migration-related phenomena. The Handbook aims to (a) bridge the practical and technical aspects of using data innovations in migration statistics, (a) demonstrate the added value of using new data sources and innovative methodologies to analyse key migration topics that may be hard to fully grasp using traditional data sources, and (c) identify good practices in addressing issues of data access and collaboration with multiple stakeholders (including the private sector), ethical standards, and security and data protection issues…(More)” See also Big Data for Migration Alliance.
The Expanding Use of Technology to Manage Migration
Report by Marti Flacks , Erol Yayboke , Lauren Burke and Anastasia Strouboulis: “Seeking to manage growing flows of migrants, the United States and European Union have dramatically expanded their engagement with migration origin and transit countries. This increasingly includes supporting the deployment of sophisticated technology to understand, monitor, and influence the movement of people across borders, expanding the spheres of interest to include the movement of people long before they reach U.S. and European borders.
This report from the CSIS Human Rights Initiative and CSIS Project on Fragility and Mobility examines two case studies of migration—one from Central America toward the United States and one from West and North Africa toward Europe—to map the use and export of migration management technologies and the associated human rights risks. Authors Marti Flacks, Erol Yayboke, Lauren Burke, and Anastasia Strouboulis provide recommendations for origin, transit, and destination governments on how to incorporate human rights considerations into their decisionmaking on the use of technology to manage migration…(More)”.
Automating Immigration and Asylum: The Uses of New Technologies in Migration and Asylum Governance in Europe
Report by Derya Ozkul: “The EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act proposal categorises AI uses for immigration, asylum and border as high risk, but new technologies are already used in many aspects of migration and asylum ‘management’ beyond imagination. To be able to reflect on the AI Act proposal, we first need to understand what current uses are, but this information is not always publicly available.
The new report by the Algorithmic Fairness for Asylum Seekers and Refugees (AFAR) project shows the multitude of uses of new technologies across Europe at the national and the EU levels. In particular, the report explores in detail the use of forecasting tools, risk assessment and triaging systems, processing of short- and long-term residency and citizenship applications, document verification, speech and dialect recognition, distribution of welfare benefits, matching tools, mobile phone data extraction and electronic monitoring, across Europe. It highlights the need for transparency and thorough training of decision-makers, as well as the inclusion of migrants’ interests in the design, decision, and implementation stages…(More)”.
Use of new data sources for measuring international migration
UNICE Report: “Migration and other forms of cross-border mobility are issues of high policy importance. Demands for statistics in these areas have further increased in light of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the 2018 Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration. The statistical community continues to be challenged to capture international migration and cross-border mobility in a way that would meet the growing needs of users.
Measurement of migration and cross-border mobility relies on a variety of sources, such as population and housing censuses, household surveys and administrative records, with each of them having their own strengths and limitations. Integration of data from different sources is often seen as a way to enhance the richness of data and reduce coverage or accuracy problems. Yet, even this would often not capture all dimensions of migration and cross-border mobility.
New non-conventional data sources, such as data gathered from the use of mobile telephones, credit cards and social networks — generally known as big and social media data — could be useful for producing migration statistics when used in combination with conventional sources. Notwithstanding the challenges of accessibility, accuracy and access to these new sources, examples are emerging that highlight their potential.
In 2020 the Bureau of the Conference of European Statisticians (CES) set up a task force to review existing experience and plans for using new data sources for measuring international migration in national statistical offices and outside official statistics; analyse the material collected; and compile the examples into a reference tool.
This publication presents the results of the work of the task force, including various national experiences with big data and new data sources collected through two surveys among countries participating in the CES…(More)”.
The potential of Facebook advertising data for understanding flows of people from Ukraine to the European Union
Paper by Umberto Minora et al: “This work contributes to the discussion on how innovative data can support a fast crisis response. We use operational data from Facebook to gain useful insights on where people fleeing Ukraine following the Russian invasion are likely to be displaced, focusing on the European Union. In this context, it is extremely important to anticipate where these people are moving so that local and national authorities can better manage challenges related to their reception and integration. By means of the audience estimates provided by Facebook advertising platform, we analyse the flows of people fleeing Ukraine towards the European Union. At the fifth week since the beginning of the war, our results indicate an increase in the number of Ukrainian stocks derived from Ukrainian-speaking Facebook user estimates in all the European Union (EU) countries, with Poland registering the highest percentage share (33%) of the overall increase, followed by Germany (17%), and Czechia (15%). We assess the reliability of prewar Facebook estimates by comparison with official statistics on the Ukrainian diaspora, finding a strong correlation between the two data sources (Pearson’s ?=0.9r=0.9, ?<0.0001p<0.0001). We then compare our results with data on refugees in EU countries bordering Ukraine reported by the UNHCR, and we observe a similarity in their trend. In conclusion, we show how Facebook advertising data could offer timely insights on international mobility during crises, supporting initiatives aimed at providing humanitarian assistance to the displaced people, as well as local and national authorities to better manage their reception and integration…(More)”.
Ethical Considerations in Re-Using Private Sector Data for Migration-Related Policy
IOM practitioner’s paper: “This paper assesses the ethical risks of using non-traditional data sources to inform migration related policymaking and suggests practical safeguards for various stages during the data cycle. The past decade has witnessed the rapid growth of non-traditional data (social media, mobile phones, satellite data, bank records, etc.) and their use in migration research and policy. While these data sources may be tempting and shed light on main migration trends, ensuring the ethical and responsible use of big data at every stage of migration research and policymaking is complex.
The recognition of the potential of new data sources for migration policy has grown exponentially in recent years. Data innovation is one of the crosscutting priorities of IOM’s Migration Data Strategy.
Further, the UN General Assembly recognises rapid technological developments and their potential in
achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration highlights the importance of harnessing data innovation to improve data and evidence for informed policies on migration. However, with big data comes big risks. New technological developments have opened new challenges, particularly, concerning data protection, individual privacy, human security,
and fundamental rights. These risks can be greater for certain migrant and displaced groups.
The identified risks are:…(More)” (see also Big Data for Migration Alliance)
Nowcasting daily population displacement in Ukraine through social media advertising data
Pre-Publication Paper by Douglas R. Leasure et al: “In times of crisis, real-time data mapping population displacements are invaluable for targeted humanitarian response. The Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 forcibly displaced millions of people from their homes including nearly 6m refugees flowing across the border in just a few weeks, but information was scarce regarding displaced and vulnerable populations who remained inside Ukraine. We leveraged near real-time social media marketing data to estimate sub-national population sizes every day disaggregated by age and sex. Our metric of internal displacement estimated that 5.3m people had been internally displaced away from their baseline administrative region by March 14. Results revealed four distinct displacement patterns: large scale evacuations, refugee staging areas, internal areas of refuge, and irregular dynamics. While this innovative approach provided one of the only quantitative estimates of internal displacement in virtual real-time, we conclude by acknowledging risks and challenges for the future…(More)”.
Digital Wallets and Migration Policy: A Critical Intersection
Report by the German Marshall Fund: “A range of international bodies have recently begun experimenting with digital wallets. Digital wallets take many forms but are typically mobile phone-based systems that enable people to make electronic transactions and/or share identity credentials. In cross-border and migration contexts, digital wallets promise to have wide ranging implications for global governance, especially in identity management and finance. Aid organizations, governments, technology companies, and other interested parties are testing digital wallet projects that either target, or incidentally affect, migrants and refugees along with mainstream citizens.
A pertinent example is Ukraine’s Diia wallet. Precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the reliance on digital systems for governance, the Ukrainian government launched the Diia wallet in 2020. Diia provides Ukrainians with a centralized, digital platform for storing, managing, and sharing official credentials such as vaccination records, insurance documents, passports, ID cards, and licenses. Through the Diia mobile application, Ukrainian people can engage with the government to update residence or driving license information, pay taxes, or access benefits, among other uses.
In early 2022, Russia’s war on Ukraine prompted the mass displacement of Ukrainian refugees. Key government infrastructures have been and continue to be targeted, compromised, and/or destroyed by Russian forces. Some Ukrainians have lost access to their devices, network connections, and digital ID documents in the Diia wallet (see Figure 1). However, others are using the wallet to access vital assistance. Internally displaced people are receiving monthly aid to cover living expenses; refugees are using Diia to donate to the army, report on enemy troops, and access TV and radio. The Diia wallet is a key example of a mainstream digital wallet system being stress tested in circumstances of political conflict and displacement. It illustrates the urgent need to investigate the implications of national digital wallet systems for governments and people in crisis:
- Does the digital wallet infrastructure support the secure continuation of government services and assistance?
- Do digital wallets boost the resilience of internally displaced people and refugees rebuilding their lives across borders, including marginalized groups?
- What are the risks of a digital wallet system, and how are they playing out in conditions of mass displacement?…(More)”.