Across Africa, governments are introducing digital systems that use individuals’ unique physical measurements to identify them. These systems collect citizens’ biometric and personal data and use it to give people access to essential public services like voting, healthcare, education and social protection. Biometric digital identification systems are often promoted as tools to improve efficiency, inclusion and service delivery.
But a new report by the African Digital Rights Network, published by the Institute of Development Studies, highlights serious concerns about exclusion, rights violations, data protection and accountability. Drawing on evidence from ten African countries, the report shows how millions of people are struggling to enrol in or safely use these systems, or are choosing not to participate due to fear and mistrust.
The report draws on the expertise of researchers based in each of the ten countries studied. Tony Roberts, co-editor of the report, takes us through what they found.
What are biometric digital IDs and why are they both useful and problematic?
Digital-ID is a form of identification that can hold large amounts of sensitive personal data. This includes biographic data like name, date of birth and address, as well as biometric data such as fingerprints and facial recognition. What makes digital-ID distinct from paper-based IDs is that it is machine readable. And, when it’s connected to the internet, millions of people can be identified and verified, instantly and remotely.
Biometric digital-ID includes facial recognition, fingerprints, iris scans and voice patterns that are unique to individuals. It can verify that an individual is who they claim to be.
Increasingly, biometric digital-ID systems are being imposed across Africa and used to determine who gets services or entitlements. For example, fingerprint or iris scans are used during elections to confirm that a person is entitled to vote. In Botswana and in Malawi there are examples of ID chaos threatening voter registration.
But these systems are leaving millions of citizens in Africa unable to obtain essential services. Some people struggle to register for biometric digital-ID due to disability or illiteracy. There are costs to use online systems, including phone access, mobile data, or electric power for phone charging. This is deepening existing inequalities.
How is uptake happening in Africa?
Our report includes ten country studies. The research was coordinated by the African Digital Rights Network, bringing together 75 digital rights researchers from 30 African countries, in collaboration with Paradigm Initiative, a non-profit organisation.
We found that pressure to adopt biometric systems often comes from foreign funders and creates dependencies on foreign technology providers.
The World Bank claims that the motivation for spending billions of dollars on digital-ID is to meet the Sustainable Development Goal of “identity for all”. But the role of private vendors, international funders and even state actors may also reflect interests in profit generation, data control, or surveillance of populations.
The introduction of biometric digital IDs varies between countries. Between 2017 and 2025, Ghana registered 19 million people (around 95% of the adult population) to a system called GhanaCard. In Ethiopia, 28 million people (around 35%) have enrolled in the Fayda-ID scheme. In the Democratic Republic of Congo there is still no digital-ID system despite repeated announcements and legislation introduced to enable it since 2011.
In Senegal, biometric digital-ID, with fingerprint data, was introduced in law in 2016. Citizens need it to obtain a phone number, bank account and public services, such as electricity and water. Based on 2025 data, it’s estimated that around 10 million citizens hold a biometric national ID card, just over 90% of the population aged 15 and over.
But this suggests that around 10% of the population over 15 – over 1 million people – lack ID and therefore lack access to essential services and entitlements.
What are the challenges of rolling them out?
One of the challenges is that universal human rights which should be unconditional become conditional on enrolment in a biometric digital-ID scheme. These include access to education, healthcare, social security and voting. Withholding access is a violation of fundamental human rights.
The report includes the case of Ethiopia, where registration in the Fayda digital-ID system is a condition of access to government services, banking and mobile telecoms.
Millions of citizens cannot enrol, particularly those with disabilities. For example, some people don’t have fingerprints due to amputation, diseases including leprosy, years of hard manual labour or old age. Some people cannot provide iris scans due to vision problems.
Millions of Africans are also denied legal ID because government officials dispute their citizenship. The project of digital-ID is sold as a solution. But research shows that it reproduces this form of discrimination and injustice.
For example, in Kenya, members of the Somali, Nubian and Pemba communities who have lived in the country for five or six generations and inter-married are discriminated against and rendered stateless. They are denied digital-ID and so cannot access education, healthcare, voting and social protection.
Some do not want to enrol for a biometric digital-ID because they have good reason not to trust their governments with their personal information. In countries like Sudan and Ethiopia the state is targeting people based on their ethnic group or on other identifiers such as surname, address or religion which are used as proxies for ethnicity.
Are there any dangers?
The use of biometric digital-ID introduces new challenges and risks. These include risks to privacy caused by data leakage or sharing and risks of exclusion due to poor data quality or mismatches.
There are also privacy risks involved because biometrics are permanent. People need to be aware and give informed consent. Data protection principles should be followed.
There is a lack of adequate legal frameworks and robust digital security to prevent unauthorised access to sensitive data. Countries also lack accountability mechanisms for when data entry errors, breaches or system failures occur.
The Universal Digital Public Infrastructure Safeguards Initiative has a framework of 18 core principles to ensure that digital-ID is secure, inclusive and rights-based.
Eight out of ten countries studied in the report have no law specifically governing digital-ID, and none include special protection. In some cases, where legal provisions exist, enforcement is weak or symbolic.
Independent oversight bodies are rare, as are judicial mechanisms to contain function creep – where ID systems expand beyond their original scope. Governments could secure consent by saying that digital-ID will only be used for a single purpose, such as voting. But then they could make it mandatory for accessing education, healthcare, employment and banking.
Without stronger legislation, clearer accountability and harmonised regional standards, digital-ID projects risk entrenching inequality and mistrust rather than delivering inclusion or security.
- is a Digital Research Fellow, Institute of Development Studies
- This article first appeared in The Conversation
