About this topic
Digital identity allows people to prove who they are, unlocking access to services and opportunities in education, health, finance, and government.
UN Sustainable Development Goal 16.9—a legal identity for all—will only be achievable when digital technologies make identification something every state can provide to every person living within its borders. “Digital identity,” “digital ID,” and “digital identification” carry transformative potential, but also significant risks. Digital traces, from cell tower footprints to transaction logs, can feed into identification systems or even “social credit scores,” often without individuals’ consent or knowledge. Personal contributions to social networks—intended to build digital identities—can also be leveraged to segment, discriminate, or serve communities.
Caribou has actively engaged with digital ID from multiple angles, balancing the state’s imperative to identify citizens, the market’s need for smooth commercial interactions, and individuals’ rights to dignity, agency, and control over their identities.
Our work has focused on Good ID as a movement, examined the identification experiences of marginalized and vulnerable communities during the rollout of India’s digital identity system Aadhaar, explored young people’s interactions with identification systems, and more recently, investigated the ID experiences of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers.
