Digital identity systems convert individuals into digital data, which are machine-readable and amenable to administration. Associated to access to public services, social protection and humanitarian schemes, digital identity systems are increasingly linked to the pursuit of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 16:9: “provide legal identity for all including free birth registrations by 2030”. Such a link is based on the view of digital identity as a force for good, capable to include all those entitled to a given service, programme or humanitarian scheme, and at the same time exclude all the non-entitled.
In spite of this orthodoxy, digital identity systems have caused severe harm on users.
A recent report <https://chrgj.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Report_Paving-a-Digital-Road-to-Hell.pdf> by the Centre for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University has found such systems associated to large-scale human right violations, resulting in an open letter <https://www.accessnow.org/open-letter-to-the-world-bank-digital-id-systems/> demanding the World Bank and its donors to cease activities that promote harmful models of digital ID.
In this seminar, Silvia Masiero will use data from her 14-year research on digital identity systems to examine the ways digital identity systems can cause harm on their users, and explore routes to build forms of "fair ID" through which such harm is combated.
Margunn Aanestad will approach the topic from the point of view of Scandinavian countries, detailing instances of digital inclusion and exclusion associated to digital ID.