Millions of Africans, especially those already living at the margins, are being locked out of essential services as governments race ahead with biometric digital-ID systems that remain fraught with privacy risks, exclusion, and weak legal protections.
This is the stark warning from a new African digital Rights Network report authored by researchers across the continent under the coordination of the Institute of Development Studies.
The report, Biometric Digital-ID in Africa: Progress and Challenges to Date – Ten Country Case Studies, reveals that millions of citizens are unable to access fundamental rights and services, such as healthcare, education, social-protection payments and even voting, because the new systems increasingly require fingerprint, facial or iris data as a precondition for recognition.
According to the researchers, biometric-ID systems, estimated to cost African governments over US$1 billion to implement, are being introduced without adequate legal safeguards, data-protection frameworks or accountability mechanisms to resolve errors, breaches or wrongful exclusion.
These gaps are proving particularly devastating for people with disabilities, rural communities and those who cannot afford mobile data, smartphones or electricity to power their digital identities.
Dr Tony Roberts, Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies and co-editor of the report, worringly points out that fundamental human rights like education, healthcare and the right to vote are rapidly becoming conditional on enrolment in biometric digital-ID systems.
“While some may benefit from the convenience, it is locking out millions, especially people with disabilities, who cannot use or register for these systems,” he said.
Co-editor Gbenga Sesan, executive director of Paradigm Initiative, a pan-African social enterprise working on digital inclusion and digital rights through its offices in Cameroon, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, also voiced his concerns.
“Many citizens have good reason to mistrust their governments with biometric and personal information. We found cases of massive data breaches and situations where personal data was misused to surveil peaceful critics and opposition leaders,” he stated.
The research questions why governments and private tech companies are advancing biometric systems that citizens have not asked for and have sparked protests and delayed rollouts due to widespread mistrust in several countries.
The authors conclude that digital-ID systems should never be imposed top-down. They instead argue that strong legislation, robust data-protection frameworks and genuine citizen participation are essential to ensuring that digital identification enhances inclusion rather than deepening digital divides across Africa.
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