INTRODUCTION AND EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Ndaga Muntu, Uganda’s national digital ID system, is a government showpiece that is of major importance for how individuals access their social rights and for how the Ugandan government operates. Initially designed to serve national security objectives that have dominated its operation ever since, Ndaga Muntu has never made good on its other promise to foster social inclusion, a promise often repeated by proponents of digital ID systems around the world.4 As our seven months of in-depth research investigating the impact of this national ID system on the human rights to health and social security for women and older persons will show, the result is the worst of all possible worlds. Ndaga Muntu has led to mass exclusion, shutting out as many as one third of Uganda’s adult population, and has become a barrier for women and older persons, as well as many other marginalized individuals, to access their human rights. This wholesale and severe exclusion and the accompanying human rights concerns are not merely an intrinsic wrong, Ndaga Muntu has also failed to deliver on many of its instrumentalist promises since its inception in 2014. The national security rationale that has animated this project from the start seems ill-served by Ndaga Muntu in its current form and, if anything, has stirred up trouble, caused anger and frustration, and changed the political ecosystem of the country. The national ID project also soaks up money that could have been used to improve the welfare of the people in Uganda while hardly delivering on the outsized promises associated with digitalisation, such as easier access to public and private services or creating a burgeoning digital economy. Seven years after the introduction of Ndaga Muntu, it is time to fundamentally rethink the approach to digital ID in Uganda. 1. Ndaga Muntu: a national security ‘weapon’ It is no secret that Uganda’s national digital ID system, colloquially referred to as Ndaga Muntu among Ugandans,5 is primarily a national security project. From its early days, the national ID project was referred to by the Ugandan government as the National Security and Information System (NSIS).6 In 2013, the late General Aronda Nyakairima—at that time the Chief of Defence Forces of the Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF)—was appointed as Minister of Internal Affairs. General Aronda was entrusted with a critical mission: to take charge of the national ID project, which at that point was teetering on the edge of collapse. In an interview, General Aronda emphasized the importance of the project from a national security perspective, saying, “This is a way to monitor and know where people are. It is another element to be added on to our arsenal of security weapons.”7 When the national ID project was finally given a basis in law in 2015, General Aronda told Parliament that it would serve as “the distinguishing feature for the general population from illegal residence” and that the national ID would help in the fight against terrorism, address rampant crime, and curb illegal employment and ghost workers.8 We spoke with many people in different parts of Uganda about the national ID system. They understood the national security imperative behind Ndaga Muntu. A man in Nebbi told us, “sometimes when you cross to Congo, without the ID, they can beat you to 8 Chased Away and Left to Die