The Canadian government's proposed use of artificial intelligence to assess refugee claims and immigration applications could jeopardize applicants' human rights, says a group of privacy experts. The warnings are raised in a new report from the Citizen Lab, a group of civic-minded technological and privacy policy researchers at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs, and the University of Toronto Faculty of Law's International Human Rights Program. The federal government is already taking steps to make use of artificial intelligence. In May, The Globe and Mail reported that Justice Canada and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) were piloting an artificial-intelligence program to assist with preremoval risk assessments and immigration applications on humanitarian grounds. The report being released Wednesday cautions that experimenting with these technologies in the immigration and refugee system amounts to a "high-risk laboratory," as many of these applications come from some of the world's most vulnerable people, including those fleeing persecution and war zones.