For refugees and asylum seekers in the UK, being offline is not an inconvenience — it is a structural barrier to rights, healthcare, employment, and survival.
One minute, you have a home, a community, and a daily routine you know by heart. Next thing you know, you are somewhere entirely new, surrounded by strangers, grappling with systems, services, and technology that seem designed for people who already “belong.”
For many refugees and asylum seekers in the UK, digital inclusion is not a luxury, it is essential for survival, legal processes, and social integration. From job applications to healthcare appointments, Wi-Fi access and digital literacy can shape whether an asylum seeker is isolated or empowered in a new country.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) defines digital inclusion as equal, meaningful, and safe access to digital technologies and opportunities, ensuring that vulnerable and marginalized groups are not left behind [16]. Through its Digital Inclusion initiative, UNHCR promotes the inclusion of displaced populations in digital frameworks, ensuring legal access to SIM cards, financial services, data protection, and civic participation [16]. The UN recognizes that the digital divide amplifies existing social, economic, and cultural inequalities such as gender, age, race, income and ability for groups. They specifically acknowledge refugees and persons on the move as being parts of these groups that often face additional structural barriers to accessing digital technologies and services [15]. Consequently, this initiative indicates that digital access is not only about convenience, but it is also a prerequisite for exercising fundamental rights.
Within the UK, these concerns about digital exclusion have begun to shape policy discussions. For instance, the UK published their first steps for their Digital Inclusion Action Plan in 2025, which identifies five priority groups: (1) low-income households, (2) older people, (3) disabled people, (4) people currently out of work, and (5) young people [5]. Subsequent consultation responses highlighted additional groups experiencing distinct barriers to digital inclusion, including refugees and asylum seekers as they noted that these groups may encounter challenges such as language barriers, limited awareness of available resources, and inadequate digital skills or support [6]. At present, however, no updated iteration has yet incorporated these additional populations as standalone categories. As a result, refugees and asylum seekers remain implicitly captured within broader classifications such as “low-income households” or “people currently out of work,” which risks obscuring the distinct structural barriers faced by displaced populations.
This report explores how refugees and asylum seekers experience digital exclusion differently than host communities, the consequences for employment, health, and social life, and lessons for policy. By centering personal narratives first, we aim to highlight the human realities and illuminate strategies for more inclusive digital frameworks.
Refugees and Asylum Seekers as Structurally Distinct
Legal and Administrative Challenges
For many refugees and asylum seekers, digital exclusion is procedural and rights-based. Access to online systems is critical for navigating immigration status, scheduling appointments with the Home Office, receiving updates, submitting asylum applications, or accessing legal documents, such as eVisas [14]. Without stable internet or functional devices, asylum seekers may miss deadlines, fail to submit required forms, or struggle to access health and social services.
Digital inclusion strategies for refugees and asylum seekers must explicitly frame connectivity as providing legal and administrative participation. This could be accomplished through subsidized devices, guaranteed access to public Wi-Fi, and guidance on using government portals safely.
Extreme Income Constraints
When Juhur ran out of mobile data, he relied on public libraries, where Wi-Fi and computer access were strictly time-limited [20]. These constraints were compounded by structural financial barriers. People seeking asylum receive support through the Asylum Support Enablement (ASPEN) card, which can be used for in-store purchases and ATM withdrawals but not for online transactions or recurring contract payments [20]. As a result, asylum seekers are prevented from opening contracts or SIM-only plans, forcing reliance on expensive pay-as-you-go data [20].
As Juhur explained [20]:
“The library computer here [Huddersfield] is one hour. In Sheffield is two hours and most of the time I don’t have data. I don’t have enough data. I only use £10 a month for my phone so I only have 5GB of data. That’s not enough. I just Google things, I can’t use Skype or video.”
State-provided asylum support rates are fixed and fall well below UK poverty thresholds [20]. For individuals restricted from supplementing their income through employment, even small data packages can sometimes amount to around 10 percent of their weekly asylum support payment [20]. Unlike other low-income groups, asylum seekers cannot legally increase their income to offset these costs [13].This creates a structural form of exclusion as limited connectivity directly affects their ability to apply for jobs, maintain social ties, access healthcare, and integrate into society.
Affordability programmes must therefore account for fixed allowances and systemic restrictions. Policy responses could include subsidized mobile data packages, zero-rated access to essential government services, and device-lending schemes that do not require formal bank accounts or long-term addresses.
Language, Literacy, and Platform Navigation
“My laptop helps me with English language, 90% of my search is about English language because I need to improve my English. I speak much better now, it’s not perfect now but much better than it was before. I have done a lot of search about British Values, about democracy and individual liberty. I read a lot of topics and translate to my language to better understand [18].”
While access to devices such as laptops can play a critical role in supporting language acquisition and enabling refugees to engage with social and civic concepts, this process often relies heavily on translation tools. Although translation helps bridge immediate comprehension gaps, it can create challenges when accessing digital services that may not be available in multiple languages or require a level of English proficiency to navigate accurately.
Low English literacy intersects with unfamiliarity with UK institutions and fear of making mistakes in digital applications [2]. For many refugees and asylum seekers, online platforms are not intuitive, requiring users to navigate multiple systems, translate content, and learn new bureaucratic procedures simultaneously [7]. This demonstrates how literacy, digital skills, and procedural knowledge are deeply intertwined, and missteps can carry real consequences, such as delayed asylum decisions and missed healthcare appointments.
Consequently, digital literacy programmes must be multilingual and culturally contextualised, while digital public services should reduce overreliance on translation by improving the accessibility and language inclusivity.
Surveillance, Trust, and Data Fear
For some, using online government services provokes mistrust rather than confidence [2].
“Online things tend to make me sceptical, and I believe that confidentiality and trust issues arise because I don’t know who I am speaking to. Most of the time you end up dealing with untrained receptionists who always ask to call back when they list all your personal issues, which should be kept between you and the doctor or nurse. ”
Experiences of surveillance, both in their countries of origin and within asylum systems, shape reluctance to share personal information [2]. Digital exclusion may be by choice in this case as a protective strategy. Therefore, trust is essential. Digital strategies must ensure clear, accessible information on data handling, privacy protections, and safe engagement with digital systems. Collaboration with NGOs and refugee organizations can help build confidence in online tools [11, 20].
Temporality and Mobility
Refugees and asylum seekers often face rapid relocation between accommodations, disrupting continuity of digital access [20, 18].
Location-based approaches, such as community hubs or local digital inclusion centers, work for residents with stable addresses, but fail when populations are mobile. Displaced people may lose access to broadband subscriptions, device lending programs, and community networks every time they move.
As a result, digital inclusion for refugees and asylum seekers must be portable and flexible to follow the user across locations. Policy frameworks built around static, local access points inadvertently exclude mobile populations. For these reasons, it is important to expand portable community hubs, ensure broadband continuity, and develop device-lending or mobile data programs that travel with displaced populations.
Lived Experiences: Employment, Health, and Social Life
Employment Access
“I had to borrow a laptop from other residents to do my work… If I had a laptop, I could study, do online courses, apply for jobs, research, and complete my CV [10].”
For many refugees and asylum seekers, digital access is central to finding and maintaining employment. Job applications, CV creation, online courses, and employer communications all require reliable devices and connectivity. Without a laptop or stable internet, individuals face structural barriers to economic participation. Libraries and community centers become essential lifelines, but access is limited, crowded, and often only available during standard hours. While the Home Office, the UK’s government department that manages immigration [9], maintains that refugees and asylum seekers can use public libraries for internet access, national spending cuts have led to widespread library closures and reduced local services, undermining this assumption in practice [20].
Looking ahead, as of 2024, 60% of businesses expect growing reliance on advanced digital skills over the next five years, making online access even more critical for future employability [18]. Doing so can promote faster economic integration. Lack of access directly perpetuates unemployment and dependence on state support, reinforcing structural disadvantage. Providing refugees and asylum seekers with subsidized or lent devices and dedicated Wi-Fi for employment-related activities can help overcome these barriers.
Health Access
Healthcare is a universal human right [19], however, the National Health Service (NHS) services increasingly depend on digital systems, such as online booking, telehealth consultations, electronic prescriptions, and app-based communication [12]. These systems assume stable internet access, reliable devices, and confidence navigating digital platforms. For refugees and asylum seekers, these assumptions often do not hold.
A British Red Cross report found that many asylum seekers experienced online healthcare as confusing and impersonal, struggling to communicate their needs effectively. As one participant explained:
“If it’s not one-to-one [an in-person appointment] then it is very difficult to understand the doctor … and it is very difficult to understand the use of sending photos to GP [2].”
Participants described difficulties downloading the NHS app, booking GP appointments online due to lacking an accepted form of identity documentation, and accessing translation services digitally [2]. Limited data, outdated devices, and low digital literacy further restricted access [18, 2]. Some delayed seeking care altogether because they lacked the means or confidence to navigate online systems [2].
These challenges were amplified by knowledge gaps of the healthcare system. Many asylum seekers report uncertainty about their healthcare entitlements, fear of data sharing with the Home Office, and limited awareness of their right to interpreters [2]. Distrust of government institutions can deter timely care, particularly where individuals worry that engaging with services may affect their asylum claim [2].
Digital exclusion compounds these challenges. Without independent access to devices, individuals may rely on others to navigate healthcare platforms, undermining privacy and autonomy [18]. Delayed appointments, miscommunication, and service avoidance can have direct consequences for physical and mental health.
Ensuring equitable access requires more than digitizing services. Refugees and asylum seekers must have reliable internet and up-to-date devices, improved digital literacy support, and inclusive platform design, including simplified registration, multilingual options, and low-data alternatives. Crucially, healthcare must remain accessible through both digital and in-person pathways.
Social Connectivity
“[When I moved from Birmingham to Sheffield, I play some games online]. On that game, we can track each other. So, when I moved here my friend said, ‘where are you now?’, I said, ‘in Sheffield’. On the game, in the chat room, he said, ‘oh my family is there. Can you send me a postcode?’ Then I send my postcode, then exactly that guy who was in Sheffield, he also spent time in the game. So, starting on chat first on the game, ‘where are you living?’ I said, ‘I am in [– –] Road; this is my postcode and my number’, and then after, he said, ‘I am near to [– –] Road’. On the chat room, he says, ‘just give me ten minutes’. After ten minutes, he is coming. He came in my house, so with him I went first to Peace Gardens then Victoria Hall, the library, the books, he showed me all. ”
“My friend they take for me contract. I have data, everything, unlimited everything. My friend is here more than 10 years, they take for me contract.”
For Nawid, digital platforms were essential for maintaining community ties and navigating a new city [20]. Online games and messaging apps allowed him to keep in touch with peers across accommodation locations, arrange face-to-face meetings, and locate resources like libraries and community centers. Once connected to a trusted network, he was able to access a mobile contract [20]. This shows how access to a digital connection allowed him to overcome structural barriers posed by temporary accommodation and lack of access to formal banking systems.
Digital access in this context is both social and functional. Social exclusion reinforces mental health challenges, compounds isolation, and slows adaptation to new environments. Digital connectivity is critical for maintaining a sense of belonging and building new social networks, while also providing the tools needed to participate fully in everyday life. Without such connections, displaced people face isolation, reduced opportunities, and limited access to services.
For these reasons, digital inclusion strategies must go beyond devices and connectivity. Support should integrate trusted community networks such as NGOs working with displaced individuals, and provide guidance for navigating mobile contracts and SIM options.
Gaps in the UK Digital Inclusion Action Plan
The UK government’s Digital Inclusion Action Plan marks an important first step by identifying the following priority groups: low-income households, older people, disabled people, people currently out of work, and young people [5]. However, refugees and asylum seekers are not named explicitly. Instead, they are implicitly folded into broader categories such as “low-income” or “out of work.”
At first glance, this categorization seems logical. Many asylum seekers are indeed low-income and restricted from employment. Nonetheless, the lived experiences documented here demonstrate that digital exclusion for them is not reducible to income alone. Legal blockers, temporary accommodation, restricted banking access, language barriers, and mobility intersect in ways that conventional categories cannot capture [18, 20]. For example, reliance on expensive pay-as-you-go data is driven as much by ASPEN card limitations and temporary housing as by affordability [20]. Similarly, procedural digital dependencies, such as navigating online Home Office or NHS portals, cannot be resolved through financial support or generic skills training alone [2].
Current UK policy focuses on affordability and digital skills [5], yet both pillars rest on assumptions that rarely hold for asylum seekers:
Stable housing and long-term addresses for broadband or device schemes [18]
Access to formal banking for contracts and SIM cards [20
Adequate English literacy and familiarity with institutional processes [2, 7]
For displaced populations, digital exclusion becomes intertwined with legal, social, and economic marginalization, reinforcing dependence on state support and limiting participation in employment, healthcare, and civic life.
Taken together, these gaps suggest that while the UK has initiated important steps toward digital inclusion, its framework still has work to be done. Without recognizing refugees and asylum seekers as a distinct group and accounting for mobility, procedural dependencies, and rights-based access, policies risk addressing only surface-level barriers while leaving systemic exclusions unchallenged.
Policy Recommendations: Lessons from International Frameworks
The UK’s Digital Inclusion Action Plan represents an important starting point, but without inclusive identity solutions, migrants risk exclusion from core services. As digital systems increasingly mediate access to immigration procedures, healthcare, employment, and welfare, the question is no longer simply how to improve connectivity. Instead it is how to ensure that displaced populations can fully participate in a digitized society.
International frameworks offer a broader lens. The UNHCR defines digital inclusion as ensuring equal, meaningful, and safe access to and use of digital technologies, particularly for those in vulnerable or marginalized positions [16]. Crucially, UNHCR frames digital inclusion not only as access to infrastructure, but as a matter of legal enablement, protection, participation, and agency [16]. Its programme emphasizes:
Legal access to SIM cards and digital financial services
Inclusion of refugees within national digital strategies
Digital literacy and online safety
Protection of personal data
Opportunities for digital leisure and social connection to support well-being
Strong partnerships across governments, regulators, telecom providers, and refugee communities
The importance of legal enablement is particularly clear in UNHCR-supported policy reform in Uganda. There, refugees were initially unable to register SIM cards due to identification requirements. However, following coordinated engagement between UNHCR, mobile operators, regulators, and humanitarian actors, the Uganda Communications Commission allowed SIM registration using refugee identity documents. Over 600,000 refugees subsequently gained legal SIM access, and mobile subscriptions increased by 50% [15]. This case illustrates how targeted regulatory reform can significantly expand connectivity and economic participation.
Across the Nordic region, similar principles underpin the development of user-friendly electronic identification (eID) systems that accommodate individuals without permanent national identity numbers [3]. Rather than treating documentation as a prerequisite for digital participation, these models recognize uncertain legal status and design systems accordingly.
Lastly, Nordic policymakers and researchers have begun to shed light into the specific needs of refugee and immigrant women, who have historically been overlooked in digital inclusion efforts [1, 4]. Research collaboration with the Nordic Welfare Centre and Nordregio highlight strategies to promote digital inclusion for immigrant women, such as targeted policies and partnerships with NGOs with a focus on women refugees [3]. By embedding gender and intersectional considerations, these initiatives ensure that digital policies and systems are safe, accessible, and empowering for some of the most marginalized groups.
These examples suggest that digital inclusion must be embedded within legal and belonging frameworks. Building on these lessons, the UK Digital Inclusion framework should:
1. Recognize Refugees and Asylum Seekers as a Standalone Group
Target programs, improve data collection, and ensure policy aligns with immigration, welfare, and digital strategies [8].
2. Treat Digital Access as Rights-Enabling Infrastructure
Explicitly acknowledge that connectivity enables communication with legal representatives, submission of asylum documents, access to NHS services, and civic participation [20].
3. Address Structural Affordability Barriers
Consider fixed asylum support rates, lack of banking access, temporary accommodation, and inability to enter standard contracts [20, 2, 10].
Implement subsidized mobile data packages, flexible SIM contracts, mobile Wi-FI, and device-lending schemes embedded within accommodations [7].
4. Provide Multilingual, Informed Digital Navigation Support
Offer guidance in multiple languages, explain institutional processes and address mistrust of digital systems [7].
5. Strengthen Community and Civil Society Partnerships
Leverage community ambassadors, peer mentors, and informal networks that bridge structural gaps [3].
Ensure refugees can provide feedback to shape service design [8].
Partner with refugee-led or refugee-serving organizations to co-design safe, culturally sensitive, and empowering digital services [3]. Some include the following: Breaking Barriers, Conversation Over Borders, Screen Share, and the Afghanistan & Central Asian Association.
6. Align Digital Inclusion with Broader Social Integration
Recognize the intersection between digital inclusion, social isolation, mental and physical health, and financial insecurity [7].
7. Embed Gender and Intersectionality in Digital Inclusion
Apply gender analysis to understand how factors such as migration status, caregiving responsibilities, trauma, and social norms intersect to shape access, participation, and digital risks [1].
Collect and disaggregate data by gender, age, disability, and other relevant demographics to inform policy and program design [17].
Ensure digital inclusion initiatives protect privacy, mitigate gender-based risks, and support inclusion for the most marginalized groups [17].
By integrating international insights with targeted domestic reform, the UK has the opportunity to reposition digital inclusion as more than a social support measure. As asylum procedures, healthcare systems, and employment pathways increasingly move online, connectivity becomes intertwined with the ability to exercise rights and participate fully in society.
The UK Digital Inclusion framework can therefore evolve beyond a model centered primarily on affordability and skills, toward one that recognizes connectivity as rights-enabling infrastructure for displaced populations. In a digitized society, exclusion from the internet can translate directly into exclusion from opportunity, services, and community. Ensuring digital inclusion for refugees and asylum seekers enables equity and fundamental rights.
References
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