Amid good intentions, such as providing humanitarian assistance to refugees, the use of biometric technology in humanitarian refugee management may entail various risks for the implicated refugee populations. Drawing on insights from science and technology studies, this article introduces a distinction between risks stemming from technology failure and risks stemming from successful uses of biometric technology. The article thus departs from the literature in which technology failure has been in focus by showing that analysing the effect of technology success adds an important dimension to our analysis of the range of risks that may emerge in the context of humanitarian technology uses. The usefulness of this distinction is then illustrated through an analysis of the use by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) of iris recognition in the repatriation of Afghan refugees; besides risks of failure at the implementation stage, risks also emerged once refugees had successfully registered their biometric data with UNHCR. To recognize how humanitarian refugee biometrics produces digital refugees at risk of exposure to new forms of intrusion and insecurity, we need to appreciate how successful technology can have critical implications arising from how technology is constituted in and constitutive of social phenomena.

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This article aims to acknowledge and articulate the notion of "humanitarian experimentation". Whether through innovation or uncertain contexts, managing risk is a core component of the humanitarian initiative -but all risk is not created equal. There is a stark ethical and practical difference between managing risk and introducing it, which is mitigated in other fields through experimentation and regulation. This article identifies and historically contextualizes the concept of humanitarian experimentation, which is increasingly prescient, as a range of humanitarian subfields embark on projects of digitization and privatization. This trend is illustrated here through three contemporary examples of humanitarian innovations (biometrics, data modelling, cargo drones), with references to critical questions about adherence to the humanitarian "do no harm" imperative. This article outlines a broad taxonomy of harms, intended to serve as the starting point for a more comprehensive conversation about humanitarian action and the ethics of experimentation.

Surprisingly little attention is paid to the role of digital technology and related forms of data production, storage, processing, and sharing in humanitarian governance. This paper uses Michael Barnett's () conceptualisation of humanitarian governance when arguing for a better accounting of technology in literature on humanitarian governance. Specifically, it proposes a two‐fold alertness to governance of (a) the uses of new technology and (b) that which is produced by digital technologies. This elucidates important issues, including that of access to digitalised data collected from humanitarian subjects, with implications for their (in)security. The paper concludes by suggesting that access is no longer ‘only’ about challenges of gaining access to vulnerable populations, but also about challenges of preventing access to vulnerable digital bodies and their use for aggressive purposes. In short, access and protection acquire a new dimension and analyses of humanitarian governance must be more attentive to the role of digital technology.