ASYLUMHow Authorities Assess Asylum Seeker Credibility

Credibility is a crucial factor when immigration authorities determine whether an asylum seeker is eligible to reside in Denmark or not. However, the assessment of an asylum applicant’s credibility takes place in such a complex and opaque procedure that an applicant’s rights can easily be suppressed This is the conclusion of a new University of Copenhagen study that examines how data was used in a large number of asylum decisions.

This is one part of the reason why an applicant was denied asylum by the Danish Refugee Appeals Board in 2019. It is one of fifty asylum decision summaries, in which asylum seekers were denied asylum, that researchers at the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Computer Science investigated. The research sheds light on the role of data when the Refugee Appeals Board (the highest decision-making body) decides who is entitled to asylum – something that, according to the researchers, has thus far been underexposed in Denmark. Specifically, the researchers reviewed various data practices used by the board to makes decisions.

The decisive factor, according to the study, is whether the authorities consider the asylum seeker to be ‘credible’ or not. But how is credibility assessed? 

“The Refugee Appeals Board must decide whether the applicant has a well-founded fear of persecution in their country of origin. Our review shows that this assessment takes place via a very complex procedure, where one can estimate using many types of data produced in many different places, that can be interpreted in many different ways. And, it is not unproblematic,” explains PhD fellow Trine Rask Nielsen from the Department of Computer Science.

Inconsistencies Equate with Untrustworthiness
According to the study, the crux of the Refugee Appeals Board’s decision is whether authorities encountered inconsistencies in the various data found in the system with regards to the individual applicant.

Data may consist of, among other things: the asylum seeker’s testimony to the Immigration Service (initial decision); an asylum application form; he authorities’ interpretation of self-reported information; register data from countries through which the applicant has travelled; facial photos and fingerprints; information from the applicants’ Facebook profile and mobile phone; and not least, country reports about the applicant’s country of origin produced by, among others, the Danish Immigration Service or NGOs like the Danish Refugee Council.