Governments are increasingly turning to digital technologies such as GPS ankle monitors and tracking apps as so-called “alternatives to detention.” But a new report from UNSW Sydney’s Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, the International Detention Coalition and the Refugee Law Lab shows these tools too often replicate detention in digital form, restricting liberty, undermining dignity and causing real harm for people on the move.
This is a recording from a launch event held on 16 September 2025, to present the findings of a global study and introduce 10 Guiding Principles for ensuring technology reduces, rather than expands, detention.
Listen to explore how governments, civil society and technologists can move towards genuine rights-based alternatives that promote freedom, dignity and community integration.
With thanks to the Global Migration Centre at the Graduate Institute of Geneva for kindly hosting this event, and to Robert Bosch Stiftung for its generous support for this project. Read the report:
Download: 'From Surveillance to Empowerment: Advancing the Responsible Use of Technology in Alternatives to Detention' [https://www.unsw.edu.au/content/dam/pdfs/law/kaldor/2025-09-technology-in-alternatives-to-detention.pdf]
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Governments are increasingly turning to digital technologies such as GPS ankle monitors and tracking apps as so-called “alternatives to detention.” But a new report from UNSW Sydney’s Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, the International Detention Coalition and the Refugee Law Lab shows these tools too often replicate detention in digital form, restricting liberty, undermining dignity and causing real harm for people on the move.
This is a recording from a launch event held on 16 September 2025, to present the findings of a global study and introduce 10 Guiding Principles for ensuring technology reduces, rather than expands, detention.
Listen to explore how governments, civil society and technologists can move towards genuine rights-based alternatives that promote freedom, dignity and community integration.
With thanks to the Global Migration Centre at the Graduate Institute of Geneva for kindly hosting this event, and to Robert Bosch Stiftung for its generous support for this project. Read the report:
Download: 'From Surveillance to Empowerment: Advancing the Responsible Use of Technology in Alternatives to Detention' [https://www.unsw.edu.au/content/dam/pdfs/law/kaldor/2025-09-technology-in-alternatives-to-detention.pdf]
Judging Refugees: Narrative and Oral Testimony in Refugee Status Determination
UNSW Kaldor Centre
42 minutes 31 seconds
8 months ago
Judging Refugees: Narrative and Oral Testimony in Refugee Status Determination
A recording of the celebratory launch of 'Judging Refugees: Narrative and Oral Testimony in Refugee Status Determination' held on 20 November 2024. This was a hybrid panel event co-hosted by UNSW's Centre for Criminology, Law & Justice, and the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, in conversation with Dr Anthea Vogl, Dr Tina Dixson, Associate Professor Maria Giannacopoulos and Professor Daniel Ghezelbash.
In 'Judging Refugees', Anthea Vogl investigates the black box of the refugee oral hearing and the politics of narrative within individualised processes for refugee status determination (RSD). Drawing on a rich archive of administrative oral hearings in Australia and Canada, Vogl sets global trends of diminished and fast-tracked RSD against the critical role played by the discretionary spaces of refugee decision-making, and the gate-keeping functions of credibility assessment.
About the author:
Anthea Vogl is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). She teaches and researches in the fields of refugee and migration law, focusing on the social and legal categories of the refugee and non-citizen, executive decision-making, and the criminology of border control.
Guest speakers:
Dr Tina Dixson (she/her) is an early career academic, advocate, and social policy professional with experience in advancing LGBTIQA+ equality, refugee protection, and responses to gender-based violence. Tina has her own experience of queer displacement, having been forced to leave Ukraine with her partner Dr Renee Dixson due to their LGBTIQA+ activism.
Dr Maria Giannacopoulos (she/her) is Associate Professor and Director of the Centre for Criminology Law and Justice at UNSW Sydney. She holds a BA(Hons) LLB (Hons) and a PhD in Cultural Studies and is a leading scholar in decolonising approaches to law and criminology.
Dr Daniel Ghezelbash (he/him) is Professor of Law and the Director of the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at UNSW Sydney, and an Australian Research Council (ARC) DECRA Fellow.
www.unsw.edu.au/kaldor-centre
UNSW Kaldor Centre
Governments are increasingly turning to digital technologies such as GPS ankle monitors and tracking apps as so-called “alternatives to detention.” But a new report from UNSW Sydney’s Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, the International Detention Coalition and the Refugee Law Lab shows these tools too often replicate detention in digital form, restricting liberty, undermining dignity and causing real harm for people on the move.
This is a recording from a launch event held on 16 September 2025, to present the findings of a global study and introduce 10 Guiding Principles for ensuring technology reduces, rather than expands, detention.
Listen to explore how governments, civil society and technologists can move towards genuine rights-based alternatives that promote freedom, dignity and community integration.
With thanks to the Global Migration Centre at the Graduate Institute of Geneva for kindly hosting this event, and to Robert Bosch Stiftung for its generous support for this project. Read the report:
Download: 'From Surveillance to Empowerment: Advancing the Responsible Use of Technology in Alternatives to Detention' [https://www.unsw.edu.au/content/dam/pdfs/law/kaldor/2025-09-technology-in-alternatives-to-detention.pdf]
