...Refugees already live in a world where human rights are systematically denied. So as the climate crisis deepens and intersects with other economic and political crises, forcing more people from their homes, and as states retreat to ever more authoritarian security-based responses, the situation for upholding and supporting migrants’ rights looks ever bleaker...

...Corporations are also deeply implicated. It is their finance, their products, their services, their infrastructure that underpins the structures of state migration and border control. In some cases, they are directly involved in human rights violations themselves; in other cases they are indirectly involved as they facilitate the system that systematically denies refugees and migrants their rights...

...Companies...play a pivotal role in the border infrastructure that denies refugees’ human rights...Thales produces the radar and sensor systems, critical to patrolling the Mediterrean...

While Thales joined the UN Global Compact in 2003 and touts its adherence to human rights principles, it has no issue with supplying equipment and services to known human rights violators...

There are human rights risks related to the use of Thales radar and communication systems in patrol vessels deployed during Frontex operations and the EU military Operation...on the coast of Libya. The supply of biometric identity cards to authoritarian regimes, such as those of Algeria, Morocco and Turkey, are also problematic in relation to human rights...

IDEMIA is owned by the US private equity firm Advent International...

On its website, IDEMIA writes extensively about corporate social responsibility and sustainability, including a focus on human rights. However, the company works closely with Egypt’s authoritarian regime and has been accused of supplying it with tools for mass surveillance, including identity-management databases...