The Migration+Technology Hub (MTH) Tech Sessions, are practical sessions focused on examining the technological and governance challenges at the nexus of migration and technology. Open to Laurier and Waterloo students and faculty, BSIA scholars and PhD fellows. The MTH, led by the International Migration Research Centre (IMRC), and housed in partnership at the Balsillie School of International Affairs (BSIA), provides an innovative interdisciplinary space to engage in critical and policy-based scholarship around migration, technology, borders and governance – all underpinned by international human rights frameworks and sustainable development goals.
Ever since mankind has been around, we have recognized one another primarily by looking at faces. But automated facial recognition as a biometric technology arrived reliably, only around the end of the twentieth century. Today, photographs have been standardized as the primary biometric across a number of public ID documents (passports, for example) for determining uniqueness and automated verification. All this has also helped a multi-billion-dollar industry to thrive.
There are global standards (ISO, ICAO) today that address the complexities of how a photographic portrait is transformed from an art and a craft into a digitally measurable and comparable artefact. Also, as digital practices proliferate across domains and applications the need for standardization and interoperability have become central to its use.
However, momentum has also built up against its rampant use, arising out of privacy concerns, further enhanced today in the age of AI, as well as the dangers of mass surveillance. All this is at crossroads especially for vulnerable populations such as migrants and refugees, for whom this technology otherwise promises better lives and services.
Nevertheless, as both, the technology and the social as well as legal concerns around it evolve, there is little doubt that facial biometrics, managed judiciously, will continue to play an important role in the digital lives of mankind.
About the Speaker
Sanjay Dharwadker was, till recently, Senior Digital Identity Officer in the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) based in Copenhagen. He continues to work on global identity standards at ISO, ICAO as well as a number of other global working groups. He is a post-graduate in Mathematics from BITS Pilani, India.
His current areas of focus include digital identity in the humanitarian space, civil registration, evidence of identity, data protection, biometrics and biographics, addressing inter alia migrants and refugees.
Sanjay Dharwadker has over 3 decades of experience with assignments in Asia (1989 – 2004), Africa (2004 – 2014) and Europe (2014 – 2025) working with leading technology companies, national governments, as well as the United Nations and the World Bank, with whom he continues to consult today.
He is a participant at The Hague Colloquium on the future of legal identity (Bhalisa) and writes regularly on the subject. He is the author of 2 novels DIAMOND IN MY PALM (2019) and FORBUNDSBY (2025), both murder mysteries and is a member of the Crime Writers Association of the UK. He lives in Johannesburg with his wife, Priscilla Anne and occasionally play bridge.
