Biometric Technology at the Borders of Citizenship 325 4 Borderline Citizenship, First Scenario: International Refuge Individuals have the right to flee from persecution and misery (albeit some authoritarian regimes tend to ignore it: Vecellio Segate 2021, 223), and States are under an obligation to process their substantiated claims of asylum, which if approved would turn them into proper “refugees”. While no destination country has an absolute obligation to admit individuals (and especially asylum seekers whose application for refugee status is pending), States do have an obligation to non-refoul them to unsafe destinations where they would probably endure harm and indeed persecution. As complex as it might sound, this is what international law dictates: no obligation to admit, but obligation to non-relocate to unsafe harbors. If States do decide to relocate asylum seekers to destinations they consider “safe”, legal implications abound (Foster 2007), not least when it comes to identification, personal data, and information exchange with “partner States” – and technical standards and protocols applicable thereto. As States nowadays tend to criminalise most informal, unofficial migration flows, asylum seekers perceive the possession of identity documents as counterproductive: the more univocal and established their identity, the higher the chances they will be repatriated against their will, or that authorities between the pushing and pulling countries will liaise about their background and fate. This liaising, in particular, defeats the very purpose of having an international refugee law framework in place, whereby asylum seekers can seek protection for the persecution they experienced in their country of departure. Migrants are on the move to build a new life elsewhere, or simply because moving has always been an intrinsically constitutive aspiration (and arguably an inalienable right) for any human being; asylum seekers, on top on it, might be fleeing for escaping a regime that discriminates them and violates their dignity. Hence, the number of ID-free migrants who reach the shores of countries like Turkey, Italy, Spain, or Thailand is frankly unsurprising. ID capture at borders, especially through biometrics-based AI systems, largely fails to account for these individuals as humans with their own needs, potential, and aspirations: rather, they tend to assume they represent a security threat or, at very best, a burden to techno-manage (La Fors and Meissner 2022). One could be instinctively tempted to argue that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) should strive to gather and share with the authorities as extensively and accurate identity information as possible, in order for States to process claims of asylum as rapidly and comprehensively as they can. On-the-ground reality, however, speaks another truth. In fact, UNHCR personnel should not automatically share these identities for good. If they did, as it regrettably