This document discusses the information practices of humanitarian organizations serving undocumented populations and proposes a conceptualization of "digital sanctuary." It provides context on global migration trends and outlines current sanctuary models that provide safe spaces for those facing threats like detention. While humanitarian organizations rely on privacy-protecting methods, they lack data privacy training. A digital sanctuary framework is proposed, emphasizing collecting minimal data and relying less on technology. This would better protect vulnerable populations' information while supporting them through exposure and voice.

1. information practices of
humanitarian organizations
serving the undocumented:
towards a conceptualization of
digital sanctuary
Sara Vannini, University of Washington

2. roadmap
1. context: migration - and the US
2. sanctuary: theoretical underpinnings and
current practices
3. data and information: security, privacy, risks
4. humanitarian organizations info practices: a
case study
5. towards a conceptualization of digital
sanctuary

3. context

4. we are now witnessing the highest levels of displacement on record
[Source: UNHCR, 2016]

5. [Source: UNHCR, 2016]

6. Photo: thomasinlowell.com/tomblog/

7. © Tomas Castelazo, www.tomascastelazo.com / Wikimedia Commons

8. the most heavily patrolled land border in the world

10. ● the wall
● deportation force
● detention centers
● attack to “sanctuary administrations”
● end DACA and TPS programs
Trump’s immigration policy

11. Photo: datasaurus-rex.com(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Photograph: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images
Photo: tribunaemportugues.com/

12. sanctuary

13. sanctuary:
the provision of a safe space
in the face of a threat
[Rabben, 2016; Carney et al., 2017]
asylum seekers, migrants, people under the threat of detention,
deportation, or incarceration

14. sanctuary: conceptualizations
faith-based theme present in all of the major religions
and many of the smaller spiritual traditions:
• welcoming and protecting the stranger
• spatial institutionalization of religious structures
[Rabben, 2016; Snyder, 2012]

15. sanctuary: conceptualizations
Europe: offer of protection through church asylum to
those accused of crimes by sovereign forms of power
• both tradition and recognized by the law (England
1000+ years)
• abolished mostly in XVII and XVII centuries - in favor
of the rule of law and progress
[Shoemaker, 2011]

16. sanctuary: conceptualizations
Practices as alternative form of justice continued in
many part of the world:
• actual provision or symbolic act of defiance
• ethical values and protection = necessary opposition
when wrongful decisions or political expediency
[Shoemaker, 2011]

17. sanctuary practices and symbols adopted by and
merged with numerous secular institutions, but its
religious origins remain important:
• faith-based actors still critical partners
• strong collective memory as a religiously-sanctioned
form of alternative justice remains
• faith-based actors’ readiness to contest policies and
laws that abrogate the higher law of God
sanctuary: conceptualizations
[Ager, 2011; Barnett and Stein, 2012; Cunningham, 1995; Marfleet,
2011; Miller, 2015; Rabben, 2016; Riera and Poiriet, 2014]

18. the sanctuary movement

19. the sanctuary movement

20. data and information

22. ICTs introduce new security risks:
○ security breakages
○ leaks
○ inadvertent disclosure
○ hacks
○ court requests

24. maintaining privacy is especially difficult for those
who are marginalized in other areas of life
[Eubanks, 2017; Marwick & Boyd, 2018]

25. "the ability to achieve privacy often
requires the privilege to make choices
and create structures that make such
freedoms possible”
[Marwick & Boyd, 2018]

26. freedom vs coercion
privilege vs marginalization
power privilege vs systematic structural oppression
[Eubanks, 2017; Marwick & Boyd, 2018]

27. technology, information and data –
● how can we protect/not put at further risks
the most vulnerable?
● what would a digital sanctuary look like?

28. humanitarian information
practices

30. Humanitarian organizations rely on:
• people’s privacy self-management
• third parties for data security
• low tech methods for privacy protection
Humanitarian organizations lack training on data
privacy management

31. Humanitarian organizations rely on:
• people’s privacy self-management
• third parties for data security
• low tech methods for privacy protection
Humanitarian organizations lack training on data
privacy management

32. digital sanctuary

33. less data
less technology

34. “oath of non-harm for an age of big data”
● do not collect data for data’s sake, nor keep it
just because I can
● remember [that] the technologies I design are
not aimed at data points, probabilities, or
patterns, but at human beings
[Eubanks, 2017]

35. “can higher education save the web?”
● audit student data repositories and policies
associated with third-party providers
○ data policies of third-party vendors?
○ student’ agency?
● have a standard about how to handle external
inquiries for student data and information
● rethink student-tracking protocols
[Collier, 2017]

36. ways forward?

37. less data
more support - exposure - voice

38. thank you!
• Gomez, R., Vannini, S., et al. (submitted) Humanitarian
Organizations Information Practices: procedures and
privacy concerns for serving the Undocumented.
• Vannini, S., Gomez, R., Carney, M. A., Mitchell, K. (in
press, Aug. 2018). Interdisciplinary approaches to refugee
and migration studies: Lessons from collaborative research
on sanctuary in the changing times of Trump. Migration
and Society (Vol. 1,1).
• Carney, M. A., Mitchell, K., Gomez, R., Vannini,
S. (2017) Sanctuary Planet: A Global Sanctuary Movement
for the Time of Trump. Environment and Planning D:
Society and Space.