In immigration cases, high-tech gadgets are employed as alternatives to detention,

but a new report says they're not necessarily more humane.

From American Public Media, this is Marketplace Tech.

I'm Novosafo. Countries all over the world, including the U.S., use technology like check-in apps on smartphones

and ankle monitors to keep track of immigrants released from detention centers.

The idea is to allow people to live in communities while their cases are adjudicated.

But a new report finds the technologies often employed in ways that are too intrusive and can act like

digital shackles. Co-author Petram Olnar of the Refugee Law Lab at York University in Toronto

said even smartphone apps, which can be glitchy, are a challenge

for immigrants who are often waiting on asylum claims.

I've spoken, you know, to individuals who've been in detention, who, for example, have found

it very difficult to be able to meet the reporting requirements of these applications,

because sometimes people don't have access to smartphones or the technology or software that is necessary for a phone to operate

this type of application. And so we can imagine that a person who's already stressed about wanting

to make these reporting requirements happen sometimes is thwarted by the very technology that's

supposed to be assisting

them. The other area is also the kind of psychosocial impacts of increased surveillance that,

you know, disaggregates it kind of from the carceral or detention facility, but it actually

brings it into your home. It's literally in your pocket. It's your cell phone that is

tracking you. And there's something kind of

uniquely difficult about this particular moment that we're trying to also uncover in the report.

Yeah, your report mentions the phrase, the invisible leash. Can you tell me about the use of

...