Integrate Services to Integrate Migrants: Obstacles and Opportunities for Digital Integration of Migrants’ Service Providers

The European social and economic agenda sets digital inclusion and integration of disadvantaged groups as a fundamental goal for European policies. Migrants, as one of the most vulnerable and unprivileged populations, should have access and benefit from ICT usage in order to facilitate the integration process in the host country. The concept of integration also has an impact on service providers and city administrations that address migrants’ needs, being asked to coordinate their actions to guarantee an extensive approach to the integration process. Starting from interviews conducted in the MICADO project with service providers working with asylum seekers and refugees and local authorities in Bologna, this contribution focuses on obstacles to an effective digital integration while providing assistance, integration support and social services to migrants. In this article, we highlight some of the issues that arose during interviews such as data ownership, multiplicity of digital tools, internal conflicts between service providers, the political obstacles paradoxically linked to the fear of over attraction of services by disadvantaged populations and the manipulation of the migratory phenomenon by right-wing parties. Reflections, based on these topics, are provided to address some of these obstacles, aiming for positive effects of a digital integration process, both for migrants and for city services’ providers.