The Malaysian government began a refugee registration system in January 2026 that has raised protection, rights, and privacy concerns for the hundreds of thousands of refugees and asylum seekers in the country, Human Rights Watch said today. The new initiative, Dokumen Pendaftaran Pelarian (Refugee Registration Document, DPP), aims to replace the current registration system managed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
The new system comes amid Malaysia's intensified enforcement of its immigration laws, including frequent raids and indefinite detention, as well as longstanding public hostility toward migrants and UNHCR. Refugees and migrants described living in precarious circumstances, under fear of surveillance, arrest, deportation, and exploitation.
"Malaysia's new registration system lacks adequate safeguards for privacy and refugee rights, allowing increased surveillance and control of people who have been forced to flee their homelands," said Shayna Bauchner, Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. "The Malaysian authorities should work with the UN refugee agency to improve procedures for asylum seekers."
In July 2025, Malaysia's Home Ministry announced an initiative to improve data about refugees as mandated by the National Security Council. Officials have stated that prioritizing national security and working to curb fake documentation became paramount in the face of recent cuts to third-country resettlement, particularly by the US.
More than 210,000 refugees and asylum seekers are registered with UNHCR, about 190,000 of them from Myanmar, including 125,000 ethnic Rohingya. The remainder are from 50 other countries, including Pakistan, Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, and Palestine.
For decades, UNHCR has processed asylum requests in Malaysia and provided successful applicants with cards recognizing them as refugees, but the cards do not grant legal status.
Myanmar refugees living in Malaysia said the growing raids and arrests have come to define their daily lives. "I live in fear," said a Myanmar activist in Kuala Lumpur. "They'll arrest anyone. They detain people with UNHCR cards. They say, 'The card is just a card, we can break it any time we want.'"
Malaysia lacks a legal framework for determining refugee status and providing recognition and protection to asylum seekers, and has not ratified the 1951 UN Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol. Malaysian law makes all irregular entry and stay in the country a criminal offense.
The new registration system, developed by MIMOS Berhad, Malaysia's national applied research and development center, will collect biometrics and other information for a comprehensive refugee database. In January, in response to a question in parliament, Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said that the Refugee Registration Document will be the sole mechanism for managing refugees and their only recognized documentation, while UNHCR's role will be limited to resettlement.
Malaysian authorities have not indicated whether the DPP system will comply with basic standards for refugee status determination, such as nondiscrimination, criteria grounded in international law, procedural integrity, strict confidentiality, data protection, and access to appeal, Human Rights Watch said.
Human Rights Watch wrote the Home Affairs Ministry about the DPP system on April 21 but did not receive a reply.
The registration program is being launched as part of Malaysia's National Security Council (MKN) Directive No. 23, an unpublished policy that allows refugees registered with UNHCR to stay in Malaysia on humanitarian grounds. The government revised the policy in 2023 ostensibly to grant refugees the right to work. Its confidentiality, however, has reinforced uncertainty around its content and implementation. SUHAKAM, Malaysia's human rights commission, called the "inexplicably" private directive "a too late and too little approach," rather than a sustainable and rights-based solution for refugees.
The authorities should make Directive No. 23 public and suspend the DPP program until a legal framework for refugee protection is in place, with transparency and international safeguards, Human Rights Watch said.
In January, the authorities began rolling out
