examining the potential challenges | 10.1163/22131035-14020001 3 part – temporary visa applications and asylum claims, as well as to screen naturalisation applications.7 While the push for technology infusion in the public sector offers increased efficiency and speed, it also carries the risk of jeopardizing human rights and exacerbating subtle systemic biases that could lead to discriminatory outcomes.8 There are also concerns about exploiting vulnerable persons,9 and reducing transparency, particularly due to the ‘black box’ nature of some ai machine learning systems. These types of ai systems are unable to offer any reason or suitable explanation for their decisions.10 The possibility of deploying ai in the determination of statelessness has not gained much attention, and it remains under-examined within human rights scholarship and policy discourse. Drawing on scholarly literature examining the use of ai in the migratory context, this article fills this research gap. It first focuses on a theoretical scenario in which ai completely replaces human decision-makers in the determination of an individual’s stateless status and evaluates the potential human rights challenges that could arise if that happens. Statelessness determination is the decision-making process that involves identifying States to which a person has connections and then assessing if any of those States recognise a person as a national, either in terms of legislation or practise. If an individual is not recognised as a national of any state, then that person can be recognised as stateless and receive their protection in accordance with the Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (1954 Convention).11 Theoretically this article argues that fully replacing human decisionmakers with ai algorithms risks reinforcing and exacerbating existing challenges, potentially leading to violations of the rights of stateless persons to recognition and protection, as guaranteed under the 1954 Convention. I shall focus on the following human rights concerns. First, due to the unique security vulnerabilities associated with ai, it has the potential to heighten privacy risks for stateless persons. Secondly, if ai systems are trained on incomplete data 7 8 9 10 11 Awotula, (n 2) at 3, 8–9. Patrick C Aloamaka and Moses O Omozue, ‘ai and Human Rights: Navigating Ethical and Legal Challenges in Developing Nations’ 2024 6(2) Khazanah Hu kum 190. Niamh Kinchin and Davoud Mougouei, ‘What can Artificial Intelligence do for Refugee Status Determination? A Proposal for Removing Subjective Fear’ (2022) 34(3–4) International Journal of Refugee Law 376. Vikas Hassija and others, ‘Interpreting Black-box Models: A Review on Explainable Artificial Intelligence’ (2024) 16 Cognitive Computation 46. For an explanation of the black box nature of some ai models, see sect on procedural fairness. Solomon Momoh, Statelessness Determination Procedures and the Right to Nationality: Nigeria in Comparative Perspective (Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2024) 110. International Human Rights Law Review (2025) 1–31