Unfair ID (Data Justice)

We live in an age of digital ID. Through the digitisation of our biometric and demographic selves, digital ID converts human beings into digital data, which in turn mediates access to services and rights – be they public or private, commercial or not-for-profit, essential or non-essential.

Allegedly designed to improve services, and to aid humanitarianism and social inclusion, digital ID has multiple hidden complexities. From denying access to essential goods, to algorithmic bias, to the sharing of sensitive data about vulnerable groups – digital ID is not necessarily just, or balanced, or helping. It is often severely unfair.

This book offers a journey into stories of unfair ID. Exploring examples across sectors, countries and data-managed populations, it takes a data justice perspective on what this unfairness effectively means for the users of digital identity systems. Examples range from denial of food rations to eligible beneficiaries, to the searchability of asylum-seeker data in police force databases, to the algorithmically-determined exclusion of genuinely entitled users from anti-poverty schemes.

This book also explores forms of resistance to these injustices, showing how solidarity movements can resist, engage and challenge the damages of unfair ID. Through its research, it sets out to imagine forms of fair ID where people’s rights and entitlements are upheld, ultimately contributing to build a future of justice for the digitally identified.

Silvia Masiero is an Associate Professor of Information Systems at the HISP Center, Department of Informatics, University of Oslo.