This paper is part of a wider collaboration on the human rights of Rohingya living in Myanmar and in refugee situations elsewhere. The paper recognises the need for Rohingyas to drive solutions for their own futures, and for international organisations and NGOs to be accountable to the Rohingya and to value Rohingya knowledge and analysis by placing it at the centre of projects and initiatives. As such it reflects and incorporates not just the experiences, but also the views, concerns and analyses of Rohingyas impacted by human rights issues. This paper comprises five main parts. This Introduction, also provides below, an overview and background of the Rohingya and their legal status. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the concept of ‘legal identity’ and explores the drive towards greater digitisation of identity. Chapters 2, 3 and 4 look more closely at the prevailing situation related to digital identities and the Rohingya in India, Bangladesh and Myanmar respectively. These chapters also provide country specific recommendations. Finally, chapter 5 offers some general concluding reflections and recommendations. The paper is co-authored by researchers and practitioners with in-depth knowledge and experience of the different country contexts, as well as the international and cross-border context of how statelessness and persecution impact Rohingya communities. In drafting the paper, the researchers have drawn on their own existing field work, experience, research findings and analysis of the country contexts to contribute to an understanding of the cross-border and intersecting issues. The paper is also supplemented by additional interviews and analysis with Rohingyas in Myanmar, Bangladesh, India and beyond. Background: Rohingya and their Legal Status Rohingya are a predominantly Muslim ethnic community from Rakhine State Myanmar, whose histories in Rakhine, by far pre-date modern nation states and borders. The arbitrary deprivation of nationality by Myanmar, which was initiated under military rule, is a key element in the decades-long persecution of Rohingya. Myan mar’s genocide of the Rohingya and their lack of pro tection as refugees outside Myanmar are strongly linkedto Myanmar’s systematic production and perpetuation of Rohingya statelessness. The arbitrary deprivation of nationality and related systemic violations of numerous fundamental human rights, was part of a wider strategy aimed at “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”.⁶ Myanmar’s ethno-centric and exclusionary 1982 Citizenship Law, together with the arbitrary implementation of citizenship rules, provided a domestic framework that sanctioned discrimination, persecution and expulsion. Denial of citizenship - and importantly, the groups claim to citizenship by right - reinforced state narratives that Rohingyas were foreigners – ‘illegal immigrants’ – unworthy of state protection. This in turn, reinforced narratives which undermined the very identity of the Rohingya. Powerful voices dictated that ‘there is no ethnic group called Rohingya’ and ‘they are Bengali’, contributing to the stripping of identity, dignity and rights of the group.⁷ Within the context of citizenship stripping and the denial of their ethnic identity, Rohingya have reported that since the 1970s, state authorities have systematically confiscated and cancelled identity documents and other evidence that could be used as proof of their (former) citizenship and inter-generational residency; while simultaneously maintaining detailed records of Rohingya in Myanmar that are used predominantly for surveillance and population control purposes.⁸ Abuses by state authorities relating to household registration have been reported across decades including extortion, arbitrary arrest and torture. In 2015, Myanmar authorities cancelled the “white cards” or “Temporary Registration Cards (TRCs)” that Rohingya had held for twenty years, thus stripping them of voting rights ahead of the 2015 elections. Since then, Myanmar has attempted to roll out new ID cards to Rohingya in Rakhine State that identify the holders as non-citizens who require their nationality to be verified. These ID cards are known as National Verification Cards (NVCs). Whilst Myanmar insisted that the national verification process could lead to citizenship for some, many Rohingya resisted the implementation of this scheme on the basis that it erased their group identity and locked in a status of non-citizenship for the group. Within this con- ⁵ Borders, for the purpose of this paper, are understood not only to relate to physical boundaries between countries, but also: “The rise of digital borders”— which, according to the UN Special Rapporteur on Racism, “refers to borders whose infrastructure and processes increasingly rely on machine learning, automated algorithmic decision-making systems, predictive analytics and related digital technologies. These technologies are integrated into identification documents, facial recognition systems, ground sensors, aerial video surveillance drones, biometric databases, asylum decision-making processes and many other facets of border and immigration enforcement”. Ibid. 6 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2 (1948) available at: https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/ documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.1_Convention%20on%20the%20Prevention%20and%20Punishment%20of%20the%20Crime%20of%20Genocide.pdf ⁷ ISI, ‘Human Rights and Covid-19: What now for the Rohingya?’ (2020) available at: https://www.institutesi.org/resources/human-rights-and-covid-19-whatnow-for-the-rohingya [accessed 13/11/2020] ⁸ This includes the data from the “family lists” which lists every individual resident in Rohingya areas along with former ID card numbers and other biographic data. This data has been regularly and thoroughly checked by both village level administration and state authorities. 4