Dubbed DoNotPay the robot was built by London-born Stanford University student Joshua Browder who has expanded the chat bot to Facebook Messenger so he can help refugees in the US, Canada and the UK claim asylum.

“Ultimately, I just want to level the playing field so there’s a bot for everything, I originally started with parking tickets and delayed flights and all sorts of trivial consumer rights issues. But then I began to be approached by these non-profits and lawyers who said the idea of automating legal services is bigger than just a few parking fines. So I’ve since tried to expand into doing something more humanitarian,” he said.

The bot asks users a series of questions in real time, such as “Have you, your family or colleagues ever experienced harm or threats?”

It helps refugees seeking asylum in the United States or Canada complete the necessary forms and those applying in the UK, who will then have to apply in person, with the support documents.

To build the chat bot Browder watched hours of YouTube tutorial videos to build the code.