Some of the world’s poorest countries have been investing heavily in digital ID systems which it is claimed will deliver democratic and development dividends. Africa has been at the forefront of this push supported by the World Bank, UN agencies and the international community. Some of Africa’s most fragile states have been encouraged to spend billions of dollars on biometric systems from national IDs to voting systems.

While Africa has become a lucrative market for multinational tech vendors, the promised benefits of trustworthy election results and a revolutionising of the way that states deliver vital services is far harder to discern.

At the 2024 ID4Africa trade fair in South Africa, the promises kept coming: economic growth, empowering individuals, reducing government spending, enabling trust and being a key tool in solving humanitarian crises.

The conference sponsors include a who’s who of companies that have benefited from contracts meant to confer legitimacy on electoral processes and unlock the potential of Africa’s demographic advantage over other ageing continents.

A legal identity is among the UN’s sustainable development goals, where it is defined as a fundamental human right. The drive to meet this goal has seen near-bankrupt states prioritise the capture and storage of biometric data from iris scans and fingerprints to facial images.

We set out to investigate what has become of the blockbuster deals struck in sub-Saharan Africa. What has actually been delivered? Who has benefited? How have they been financed? And how have people on the ground in those countries been affected?

Methods

As well as exploring the biometrics industry and how it has courted customers in a “frontier market” our investigation focused on a representative cross section of African countries where big tech investments have gone in three distinct directions.

In Uganda, where supposedly democratic elections have failed to deliver a change of government in four decades, we explored how a Chinese tech vendor provided biometric systems which have become the foundations for a surveillance state.

In Mozambique, we probe the worsening conduct of elections in a fragile democracy. The gas-rich nation is beset by rising poverty and a brutal counter insurgency, but its ballooning biometrics costs have failed to breed confidence in democracy.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, we investigate a succession of phantom biometrics deals which have seen billions of dollars committed on paper but have so far failed to deliver a national population registry or any functioning ID cards across successive governments.

Working with partners, Bloomberg, over the course of nine months, the team combined in-depth ground reporting with expert interviews and accounts from confidential sources to reconstruct deals in the three countries from tender process to societal fallout. In support of these testimonies, we analysed thousands of pages of documents, ranging from bank records and business registries to unpublished contracts and correspondence between governments, vendors and middle men.

The result is the most detailed account yet of the failed promise of biometric technologies and one that looks at the accompanying harms for affected communities, as well as wrongdoing by several companies and individuals.

Storylines

In Uganda, where a national ID system ought to be a success story, we find it feeding a sweeping surveillance state built in cooperation with China’s Huawei. Nick Opiyo, one of East Africa’s leading human rights lawyers, who has defended victims of government crackdowns, has been a victim of widespread digital surveillance.

A succession of biometric tools have become central to many of the day to day functions of the state and also a powerful mechanism for surveilling politicians, journalists, human rights defenders and ordinary citizens.

A $126 million deal with Huawei has given Uganda the capacity to deploy facial and number plate recognition technology, as well as AI capabilities. Sensitive personal data, required to register a SIM card or make a bank transaction, can be accessed at will by state actors with no due process.

“There’s almost no confidentiality in my work any more,” Opiyo told Bloomberg. “There’s pervasive fear and self censorship.”

The second and third stories in the series will follow.