Biometric Digital ID in Africa

Tony Roberts is a Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex, where he works on digital inequalities and digital rights. He is currently the Principal Investigator on the GCRF-UKRI-funded African Digital Rights Network.‘Gbenga Sesan is the Executive Director of Paradigm Initiative (PIN), Nigeria, a pan-African social enterprise working on digital inclusion and digital rights, with offices in Cameroon, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

• Foreword. Shruti TrikanadChapter 1. Introduction to a Power Analysis of Biometric Digital-ID‘Gbenga Sesan and Tony RobertsChapter 2. Biometric Digital-ID in TunisiaYosr JouiniChapter 3. Digital-ID in Nigeria Ridwan OloyedeChapter 4. Digital Identification and Elections in Mozambique:Dercio TsandzanaChapter 5. Digital-ID Systems in Malawi: Identification, Rights and Power Interests Jimmy KainjaChapter 6. Digital-ID, Data Privacy and Surveillance in GhanaGifty Appiah-AdjeiChapter 7. Kenya’s evolution from digital-ID to DPIGrace Mutung’uChapter 8. Digital-ID in Ethiopia: Efficient Governance or Surveillance? Helen BenyChapter 9. Digital Identity in BotswanaLesedi BewlayChapter 10. Digital-ID in BeninMelody MusoniChapter 11. Conclusions of a power analysis of Biometric digital-ID ‘Gbenga Sesan and Tony Roberts

This is the book on digital identity the field has been waiting for: an account of biometric ID in Africa written from within the continent by African researchers, tracing how these systems actually land in people's lives rather than how they are narrated by the governments, donors and technology vendors that build them. Rigorous, comparative and politically alert, it demonstrates that identification is never a neutral administrative technique but always a question of rights and power — and it deserves to be read by anyone working on digital ID anywhere.