Advanced digital technologies and immigration governance in comparative perspectives
Project Lead
Team Members
Anna Triandafyllidou, Vaidehi Atodaria, Lucia Nalbandian, Abdullah Alzubaidi (external link) , Nick Dreher, Huong Le, Eleyan Sawafta (external link) , sasha skaidra
Sub-theme
ADTs in immigration governance
The sub-theme 'ADTs in immigration governance' considers the impact of advanced digital technologies on immigration governance in the past, present, and future, in Canada and in comparative perspective.
Objective
This project explores how advanced digital technologies (ADTs) have become central features of immigration politics in Canada and in comparable context. It will document how these technologies are used in immigration-related debates as solutions, problems or even dangers, using a combination of text-as-data approaches, qualitative content analysis and process tracing. By first focusing on Canada and then expanding to cases like Australia and the UK, this project will generate important empirical and theoretical insights on how ideas and discourses about ADTs act as resources for political actors in contests about how to govern immigration.
Research question(s)
- How are organizations developing and using ADTs?
- Does artificial intelligence (AI) threaten human rights and Charter rights when used in the immigration system?
- How does Canada compare with other advanced capitalist countries when it comes to the use of AI in immigration determination?
- What are good practices for the “responsible” development and use of AI?
Methodology
The team will use a combination of the extant literature, document analysis, and Access to Information requests, to assess the research questions pertaining to AI and ADTs. This project is based on work already accomplished by Triandafyllidou, Nalbandian and Dreher as part of the Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) Migration’s Migration Tech Tracker.
Related projects
- Migration Tech Tracker (Lucia Nalbandian, Lucia Nalbandian and Nick Dreher)
- The New Face of Migration Management in Canada: Digitalisation, Automation and AI (Danièle Bélanger, Mireille Paquet and Karine Côté-Boucher)
- The Life and Death of GCMS (Mireille Paquet and Karine Côté-Boucher)
Status
This project is ongoing. The Migration Tracker is being improved, and multiple publications are in the work.
Expected completion date: December 2026
Outcomes
Past events and conferences:
- Papers were presented in two consecutive panels at the 27th Canadian Ethnic Studies Association Biennial Conference (external link) , in Edmonton, Alberta on November 14-16, 2024.
Published or in press publications:
Paquet, M., & Boucher, A. K. (2025). Beyond the Queue: The Sources and Politics of Migration Backlogs in Canada and Australia. Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/15562948.2025.2458851
Keywords
ADT; Advanced digital technologies; AI; artificial intelligence; migrant governance
