UNHCR biometric verification standoff leaves 400 refugee families off food aid list

Some Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh are reported to be unable to access food rations and other humanitarian services for months now after they declined complying with a UNHCR directive to have their biometric data updated in the agency’s system. But the circumstances of the aid denial make clearer the challenges of massive scale aid delivery projects than whether any direct party to the situation has done anything wrong.

The alarm was raised by Rohingya Refugee News, which blames the new ad interim UNHCR coordinator in Bangladesh, Juliette Murekeyisoni, for failing to keep to a commitment she had made in an earlier podcast published by the news outlet.

In May 2023, the UNHCR operation in that country announced a mandatory process to update the biometrics of hundreds of Rohingya refugees in the Nayapara and Kutupalong camps, warning that all those who did not comply with the activity would not be able to access humanitarian supplies. Face, iris and fingerprint biometrics were to be collected.

The idea was to renew the registration of all refugees from the age of five and above, and then issue new refugee ID cards and update family records in the database. There are close to a million refugees living in the Kutupalong refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, the largest in the world. Tens of thousands of them have been living there since the 1990s.

The UNHCR says there are 1.13 million Rohingya refugees whose biometrics have been enrolled with the agency and the Government of Bangladesh.

It is now reported that about 400 refuge families who did not comply with the UNHCR order have since lost access to their food rations. They are also reported to have lost access to other services such as healthcare, but UNHCR says they are still able to access health facilities. Registrations which are not re-verified are considered inactive, so while those declining re-verification are not removed from the camp, they are no longer included on the list of eligible recipients of food and cooking fuel aid.

A review by UNHCR found that the refugees declining the verification exercise did not have grounds for different treatment than the others in the camp.

In the wake of this development, the UNHCR has been accused of communication failures as questions linger if it properly sensitized the refugees to the importance of the biometric exercise, the risks involved in biometric data collection and the safeguards put in place to ensure data privacy and security.

The reports suggest that the skepticism that greeted the biometrics update is surfaced after the UNHCR was accused in 2021 of sharing the biometric data of Rohingya refugees with the Myanmar government without consent, when Bangladesh’s government turned over data collected by the UNHCR to its neighbor.

Some of the refugees who refused to submit their biometrics were threatened with “consequences later,” according to testimonies reported by The Diplomat.

A representative of the organization told Biometric Update in an emailed comment that “processing of personal data by UNHCR, including biometric data, is performed in accordance with our data protection framework,” while the host nation is governed by its national laws and international obligations.

“UNHCR ensures that refugees are informed about the purposes of data collection, including the use of biometrics, and their rights as data subjects, among them a right to object against processing of their data, at any time of the processing, for legitimate grounds relating to their situation,” the statement says.

“This was the case when UNHCR and the Government of Bangladesh jointly carried out the most recent verification exercise from 2023. Working closely with the affected communities, clear information to refugees was provided as well as individual counselling.

“UNHCR carefully reviews any objections, including providing individual and group counselling, to better understand the concerns and identify any specific protection risks. The outcomes of such assessments are clearly communicated to each individual.

“Individuals who do not complete the registration and verification processes – and who are not assessed to have specific additional protection risks preventing them from completing registration – are unable to receive valid documentation and do not have access to food distributions as these are reserved for the verified population. Information is shared at every step of the process. However services remain available to all refugees in camps, including shelter, education activities for refugee children, health facilities, certain protection services and civil registration support.

“Registration remains open, and individuals are informed that they can approach authorities to undergo the verification exercise at any point.

“Especially in this current environment of shrinking funding, it is critical for UNHCR to ensure that humanitarian assistance reaches those in need in a timely and reliable manner, with adequate safeguards against aid diversion and full accountability for the delivery of assistance.

“UNHCR does not share Rohingya refugees’ biometric data – including that collected in the joint exercise with the Government of Bangladesh – with Myanmar.”

Article Topics

biometric enrollment  |  biometrics  |  digital identity  |  humanitarian  |  identity verification  |  refugee registration  |  social protection  |  UNHCR