At least 48 countries in Africa have national identity programs at several stages of development. The widespread effort to ensure that people can identify themselves stems partly from the low civil registration rates in many African countries, where millions of births and deaths often go unrecorded. Currently, four out of 10 people in Africa lack access to identification. Without appropriate birth registration for instance, people are susceptible to difficulties and exclusion in key activities such as school enrolment, obtaining citizenship, government social services and access to financial services. Target 16.9 of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – "By 2030, provide legal identity for all, including birth registration" – seems to have cemented the critical importance of identity to human development at the highest international level.International development agencies such as the World Bank and the French Development Agency (Agence Française de Développement) have backed the efforts of many African countries in the implementation of these ID systems, mainly through funding and technical advice. The World Bank has supported at least 60 identity projects in developing countries and has produced ample technical advice on how best identification systems are to be implemented in local contexts. However, a cursory observation of the implementation of national ID systems in some countries suggests that such advice is sometimes ignored. For instance, in September 2021, Renaper, Argentina’s national ID system, was reportedly breached by hackers who accessed the records of millions of people. Identification data of Argentinians was put on sale on the dark web, suggesting the absence of data protection safeguards like tokenization. This February in Nigeria, a prolonged breakdown of the server that powers the country’s national ID system highlighted the practical difficulties that arise when a country mandates a single source of identity and ignores the need to provide trusted alternatives.
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- South Africa
