Abstract Purpose This study examines how digitalization reshapes refugees’ human rights in cyberspace through the everyday connectivity practices of refugees in Uganda. While information and communication technologies (ICTs) can enable inclusion, the conditions under which refugees connect often redistribute risk and weaken practical access to protection and remedy. Design/methodology/approach The article conducts a qualitative secondary analysis of Connecting with Confidence: Managing Digital Risks to Refugee Connectivity , a UNHCR Innovation Service report based on semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, and field observations. Focusing on Uganda-related cases, especially urban refugees in Kampala, the study applies thematic analysis to trace recurring risk patterns, exposure conditions of affordability, device access, documentation, connectivity sites, and reported coping practices. A digital justice framework of visibility, engagement, anti-discrimination is paired with a postcolonial lens to interpret how infrastructural and governance asymmetries shape digital harm. Findings Three case-based risk clusters recur: (1) information theft and extraction through routine platform interactions, (2) surveillance anxieties that constrain autonomy and communication, and (3) mobile money fraud that undermines financial resilience. Refugees respond with constrained agency of selective visibility, channel switching, peer warning networks, and heightened vigilance. Yet these protective routines often narrow participation and opportunity. Among them, gender operates as a structural condition of connectivity, shaping unequal exposure and uneven capacity to develop protective practices. Practical implications A coordinated multi-sectoral response is required: governments should reduce access barriers and strengthen enforceable redress; platforms and telecoms should implement refugee-sensitive safeguards and usable reporting pathways; humanitarian actors should support context-specific digital literacy without deepening surveillance or data extraction. Originality/value By centering Global South displacement, the study extends digital justice with a postcolonial sensibility and offers a refugee-centered framework linking connectivity, harm, coping, and accountability.
Lu et al. (Tue,) studied this question.