[Forwarded from NBD Europe official]
NYU REPORT
The World Bank and co. may be paving a ‘Digital Road to Hell’ with support for dangerous digital ID
(PDF Report in comment)
The New York University (NYU) Digital Welfare State & Human Rights Project has launched last June a new report entitled: Paving a Digital Road to Hell? A Primer on the Role of the World Bank and Global Networks in Promoting Digital ID.
Global actors, led by the World Bank, are energetically promoting biometric and other digital ID systems that are increasingly linked to large-scale human rights violations.
A report by researchers at NYU warns that these systems, promoted in the name of development and inclusion, might be achieving neither. Rather than the equitable digital future envisioned by the World Bank and its Identification for Development (ID4D) Initiative, the report argues that “despite undoubted good intentions on the part of some, [these systems] may well be paving a digital road to hell.”
The report is intended to be a “carefully researched primer as well as a call to action to all of those with an interest in safeguarding human rights to set their gaze more firmly on the multidimensional dangers associated with digital ID systems.”
Governments around the world have been investing heavily in digital identification systems, often with biometric components (digital ID). The rapid proliferation of such systems is driven by a new development consensus, packaged and promoted by key global actors like the World Bank, but also by governments, foundations, vendors and consulting firms. This new ‘manufactured consensus’ holds that digital ID can contribute to inclusive and sustainable development—and is even a prerequisite for the realization of human rights.
Drawing inspiration from the Aadhaar system in India, the dangerous digital ID model that is being promoted prioritizes what the primer refers to as an ‘economic identity’. The goal of such systems is primarily to establish ‘uniqueness’ of individuals, commonly with the help of biometric technologies. The ultimate objective of such digital ID systems is to facilitate economic transactions and private sector service delivery while also bringing new, poorer, individuals into formal economies and ‘unlocking’ their behavioral data.
The promises of inclusion and flourishing digital economies might appear attractive on paper, but digital ID systems have consistently failed to deliver on these promises in real world situations. In fact, evidence is emerging from many countries, most notably the mega digital ID project Aadhaar in India, of the severe and large-scale human rights violations linked to this model.
Meanwhile, the benefits of digital ID remain ill-defined and poorly documented. From what evidence does exist, it seems that those who stand to benefit most may be “a small group of companies and governments. After all, where digital ID systems have tended to excel is in generating lucrative contracts for biometrics companies and enhancing the surveillance and migration-control capabilities of governments.
With such powerful backing, digital ID has taken on the guise of an unstoppable juggernaut and inevitable hallmark of modernity and development in the 21st century, and the dissenting voices of civil society have been written off as Luddites and barriers to progress. Nevertheless, the report calls on human rights organizations, other civil society organizations, and advocates who may have been on the sidelines of these debates to get more involved.
The actual and potential human rights violations arising from this model of digital ID can be severe and potentially irreversible. The human rights community can play an important role in ensuring that such transformational changes are not rushed and are based on serious evidence and analysis.
Where necessary to safeguard human rights, such dangerous digital ID systems should be stopped altogether.
https://chrgj.org/2022/06/17/p....ress-release-the-wor
