BIOMETRIC digital identification systems being rolled out across Africa are blocking millions of citizens from accessing healthcare, education, voting and social protection – while creating new tools for government surveillance and control, according to a major new report published by the Institute of Development Studies.
The report by the African Digital Rights Network highlights serious concerns about exclusion, rights violations, data protection and accountability, drawing on evidence from ten African countries to show 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.
Writing in The Conversation, the report’s authors warn that fundamental rights are being placed behind a digital gate. One of the challenges, they write, is that universal human rights, which should be unconditional, are becoming conditional on enrollment in a biometric digital-ID scheme – including access to education, healthcare, social security and voting. Withholding access, they argue, is a violation of fundamental human rights.
Most of the digital-ID systems – estimated to cost at least $1 billion to install across Africa – currently lack adequate legal frameworks to protect citizens from human rights violations, robust digital security to prevent unauthorised access to sensitive data, or accountability mechanisms for remedy and redress when data entry errors, breaches or system failures occur.
The researchers document wide variation in how systems have been implemented. Between 2017 and 2025, Ghana registered 19 million people — around 95% of the adult population — to a system called GhanaCard. In Senegal, a biometric digital ID with fingerprint data was introduced in law in 2016, with citizens required to have it to obtain a phone number, bank account, and public services such as electricity and water. In Ethiopia, the authors note, registration in the Fayda digital-ID system is a condition of access to government services, banking and mobile telecoms.
Yet even in countries with high enrolment, large numbers remain excluded. In Senegal, around 10% of the population over 15 – more than one million people – lack ID and therefore lack access to essential services and entitlements.
The researchers also raise sharp questions about who is driving adoption. Writing in The Conversation, they argue that pressure to adopt biometric systems often comes from foreign funders and creates dependencies on foreign technology providers. While the World Bank claims the motivation for spending billions of dollars on digital ID is to meet the Sustainable Development Goal of “identity for all,” the role of private vendors, international funders and even state actors may also reflect interests in profit generation, data control, or surveillance of populations.
Those concerns are backed by evidence of serious abuses. The researchers found examples of massive data breaches and, in some countries, personal data used to surveil and target peaceful critics of government and opposition leaders.
The researchers conclude that Africa’s biometric-ID systems are blocking citizens from rights and services, an outcome they argue is difficult to avoid given that digital-ID systems in Africa emerged from colonial tools of control and post-independence mechanisms of power consolidation, and are now digitised infrastructures that increasingly serve government and corporate interests.
Discrimination is also baked into some systems, the authors write. In Kenya, members of the Somali, Nubian and Pemba communities who have lived in the country for five or six generations are denied digital ID and so cannot access education, healthcare, voting and social protection.
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.
The authors call for African governments to overhaul how these programmes are governed. To address the gaps, they argue, African countries must shift from rhetorical commitment to practical governance – adopting clear, enforceable protections, empowering independent regulators, and ensuring inclusive participation by those most affected.
