On September 27, 2021, the Notre Dame-IBM Technology Ethics Lab and Notre Dame Technology Ethics Center (ND-TEC) hosted the second session of the fall TEC Talks series. This semester, the series focuses on the intersection of technology and power. The guests for the second session were Yussuf Bashir, Executive Director of Haki Na Sheria, and Nanjala Nyabola, a Nairobi-based independent writer, researcher, and political analyst. The discussion focused on the topics of digital identity systems and their relationship to efficiency, human rights, and international perceptions.
An example of such digital identity systems is the National Integrated Identity Management System (NIMS) in Kenya. According to Bashir, this system created a separate digital citizen distinct from the living person. This system was introduced to modernize and standardize the country’s manual identification system, which had been in existence since the colonial era and had been deemed error prone. NIMS was developed to solve all identity-based issues that arose in Kenya. Nyabola noted that NIMS was received with mixed support due to a lack of transparency about the wide array of data collected, a patrilineal system that makes it more difficult for women and orphans to prove their identity, and threats of the denial of government services to those who did not register in the new system. Further, Bashir and Nyabola noted that the NIMS system did not go far enough to address the causes of inequality, specifically as it relates to the concept of vetting. Historically, vetting citizens based on ethnicity created higher standards for proof of identity for specific ethnic groups, such as the Nubians, and in turn reduced their access to government and technological services.
To further compound issues related to the rollout of this system, there were challenges to communicate the purpose and functions of the system to citizens due to a language barrier: Nyabola noted that the second national language of Kenya, Kiswahili, does not have words for many of the technology- or privacy-related concepts which were fundamental to the NIMS system, which was written in English. This language barrier presented issues for the many Kenyan citizens who do not speak English, as well as groups advocating to inform citizens. This led to a sense of fear that the government could coerce its citizens into giving up personal information and then, as a part of a larger multinational effort, monetize their citizens’ data.
Nyabola noted that another application of these digital identification systems is their use in keeping vaccination records: not only for COVID-19, but for measles, yellow fever, and polio. In developing nations, these digital systems are often developed by foreign firms due to a lack of trust between nations about the integrity of record keeping. These systems can create a distrust of the government and normalize a level of exclusion of citizens from developing nations.
Bashir noted that a related issue is the biometric registration system set up by the UNHCR as a way to verify the identity of refugees in northern Kenya. This database was then turned over to the Kenyan government without the consent of the refugees, leading to the loss of their status as Kenyan nationals, rendering them “double-registered” and effectively stateless.
Nyabola highlighted that these systems are heavily rooted in the history of oppression and exclusion of specific ethic groups dating back to Kenya’s colonial period and noted that the government of Kenya has struggled to move away from ethnicity-influenced policymaking compared to many other postcolonial states.
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