| Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... | This series was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) fellowship. Following the 1999–2001 Kosovo crisis, Microsoft, in collaboration with Hewlett-Packard and Compaq, provided the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) with hardware and software to support a refugee mobile registration scheme that later informed the development of Project Profile. In 2002, the UNHCR launched Project Profile after its governing body, the Executive Committee of the High Commissioner’s Programme (ExCom), encouraged the standardisation of registration guidelines and the introduction of “new techniques and tools, including biometrics” as well as global software such as the UNHCR’s Profile Global Registration System (proGres). Microsoft provided technical advice and guidance on the technology specifications. The Elca Group, a Swiss company, won the tender to develop the global proGres database as part of Project Profile B. Elca was responsible for the development of the three versions of proGres (V1-V3), the UNHCR told vendors in 2013. Elca did not respond to a request for comment. According to various agency news briefs, the UNHCR and volunteers from Microsoft trained staff to use proGres, then primarily a registration tool for capturing biographical data and facial photographs, and helped set up the registration systems in several countries. The UNHCR did not provide a comment on who specifically deployed proGres, including in Kenya in 2004. proGres is built on Microsoft Dynamic Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software and is the backbone of the UNHCR’s operations, including registration, Refugee Determination Status (RSD), resettlement, and repatriation. “Thanks for checking in. The company has nothing to share,” was Microsoft’s response to The Elephant through its long-term partner We. Communications, a public relations and integrated marketing agency. A 2019 UN financial audit report states that proGres V3, an offline system of separate databases