With support from the Omidyar Network, the joint team worked with local researchers in Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe to extract a snapshot of the state of digital identity, using an evaluation framework specifically designed by CIS for assessing digital identity ecosystems.

With the growing appetite for digital ID systems across the world, there is a pressing need to examine their impact on human rights, the rule of law, and the people who will be included (or excluded) from their consequences for socio-digital inequality. This is important because digital ID systems can create an inherent power imbalance between the State and its people because of the personal data that such interventions collect, leaving residents with little ability to exert agency in its collection, storage and use. This is particularly true given that the provision of such identities are often associated with the bestowal of certain rights or other benefits, yet that potentially introduces risks of surveillance, exclusion, and discrimination.