Open forum: Key voices on digital identity and data privacy in Africa

The Africa-China Reporting Project and Omidyar Network will host this forum.

As African governments and businesses digitize their identification processes, having a digital identity can be increasingly valuable, if not required, for people to obtain healthcare, education, employment, bank services, purchases and trade; and to pay taxes, amass capital, own property, lend money, open businesses, and travel.

While digital identity has massive implications for economies and societies, very few people understand how they themselves are digitally identified; how their information is used by businesses, governments, and individuals; what rights they have; what risks they are exposed to; and what safeguards are or could be in place.

An estimated 500 million African citizens still have no formal online identification, although African states are now pursuing new and distinctive digital identification projects, many with an economic development agenda and others with national security goals. The private sector is also an active participant in digital identity.

The Africa-China Reporting Project is convening a group of key voices on digital identity in Africa in the fields of public and private IDs, the banking sector, datafication and surveillance, including:

• Kim Dancey (Head Payments Risk, FirstRand Rest of Africa and India)
• John Carneson (Former head of policy, strategy, planning and evaluation at South African Home Affairs)
• Thea Anderson (Policy Director, Omidyar Network)
• Professor Jane Duncan (Department of Journalism, Film and Television, University of Johannesburg)
• Professor Keith Breckenridge (Wits Institute For Social & Economic Research)
• Grace Mutung’u (Associate, Kenya ICT Action Network)

 Click here for the programme

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