Açikyildiz, Çaglar2024-02-232024-02-232024Açıkyıldız Ç. ‘I know you like the back of my hand’: biometric practices of humanitarian organisations in international aid. Disasters. 2024;48(2):e12612. DOI: 10.1111/disa.126120361-3666http://hdl.handle.net/10230/59245Humanitarian organisations are increasingly utilising biometric data. However, we know little about the extent and scope of this practice, as its benefits and risks have attracted all the attention so far. This paper explores the biometric practices of the United Nations Refugee Agency, the United Nations World Food Programme, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Médecins Sans Frontières, and World Vision International. The study analysed relevant documents published over the past two decades and 17 semi-structured interviews with humanitarian workers conducted between June 2021 and June 2022. The findings reveal that humanitarian organisations use diverse types and functions of biometric data for differ-ent services, collaborate with many actors, and employ various data protection measures. Ultimately, challenging the straightforward generalisations about the use of such data, the paper argues that variational applications of biometrics in the humanitarian context require case-by-case analysis, as each instance will likely produce a different outcome.application/pdfeng© 2023 The Authors. Disasters published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of ODI. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.info:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1111/disa.12612biometricsdatahumanitarian aidhumanitarian organisationsinternational aidtechnologyinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess