sufficiently important element of identity that it must be included within interpretations of the right to private and family life (Article 8 of the ECHR) and the right to the respect for dignity and recognition of legal status (Article 5 of the ACHPR). The European Convention on Human Rights also does not include a specific provision on legal identity. Nonetheless, in a concurring opinion to the European Court of Human Rights Grand Chamber decision in the case of Kurić and others v. Slovenia, Judge Vučinić stressed the “absolutely fundamental” importance of the right to legal personality and its close relationship to dignity, such that the right to legal personality must be “indirectly and tacitly included within the ambit of Article 8.1 of the Convention” on the right to private and family life.372 (u section 7.9 Consequential violations, heading on the right to family life.) This connection is reinforced in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights by the inclusion of the respect for dignity and recognition of legal status within the same article (Article 5). In 2013, the African Commission adopted a resolution on the Right to nationality, based on its jurisprudence in a number of cases, in which it restated that the right to nationality is implied within the provisions of Article 5 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the right to dignity and legal status.  In a decision against Côte d’Ivoire adopted in 2015, the African Commission reinforced this resolution: [T]he Commission considers that failure to grant nationality as a legal recognition is an injurious infringement of human dignity. Such an infringement seriously affects the legal security of the individual, particularly due to the undermining of a set of consubstantial rights and privileges to the enjoyment of fundamental legal and socio-economic privileges. Ultimately, it is the very existence of the victim which is vitally compromised.373  Building on this jurisprudence, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights confirmed in the case of Penessis v. Tanzania that “the right to nationality is a fundamental aspect of the dignity of the human person.”374 Digitalisation of identity The adoption of new population registers and identification systems is a known danger-point for the creation of stateless populations. The rapid digitalisation and biometricisation of identification systems across the world is thus creating new risks of exclusion—even as they are also asserted to be creating new opportunities for inclusion. Digitalisation of systems can, if not carefully designed, render administrative decision-making less transparent. In addition to the usual historical risks, data protection and privacy are coming to the fore as human rights concerns375 and as the focus for litigation.  In India, a series of cases challenged the Aadhaar biometric identification system, in which the Supreme Court ultimately found in 2018 that the Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits, and Services Act, 2016 (the “Aadhaar Act”) was constitutional, while striking down certain provisions of the act and holding that that private companies could not require citizens to provide their Aadhaar numbers for the provision of services.376  In 2019, the Supreme Court of Jamaica by unanimous decision declared the entire National Identification and Registration Act void because the mandatory requirement of biometric identification violated the constitutional right to privacy, and the requirements placed on Jamaicans in relation to proof of identity were disproportionate and discriminatory.377  In 2020, the Kenyan High Court held in a case brought by the Nubian Rights Forum that the newly instituted and biometric National Integrated Identity Management System should proceed only if subject to the prior adoption of an appropriate regulatory framework.378 A case launched against biometric technology company 372 Partly Concurring, Partly Dissenting Opinion of Judge Vučinić, Kurić and Others v. Slovenia, supra n 133 (judgment of 26 June 2012). 373 OSJI v. Côte d’Ivoire, supra n 166, para. 142. Penessis v. Tanzania, application no. 013/2015, African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, judgment of 28 November 2019, para. 87, https://www.african-court.org/cpmt/details-case/0132015. See also Bronwen Manby and Clement Bernardo Mubanga, “Case Note: Robert John Penessis v United Republic of Tanzania (Judgement) (African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, App No.013/2015, 28 November 2019)”, Statelessness and Citizenship Review Vol.2, no. 1 (2020), pp. 172–78. 374 375 See the webpage of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on privacy in the digital age: https://www.ohchr.org/en/privacy-in-the-digital-age. 376 Justice K.S. Puttaswamy and others v. Union of India and others, Case No. WP (C) 494/2012, Supreme Court of India, judgment of 26 September 2018, (2019) 1 SCC 1, https://main.sci.gov.in/supremecourt/2012/35071/35071_2012_Judgement_26-Sep-2018.pdf. Robinson v. Attorney General, No. 2018HCV01788, Supreme Court of Jamaica, judgment of 12 April 2019 [2019] JMFC Full 04, https://supremecourt.gov.jm/ content/robinson-julian-v-attorney-general-jamaica. 377 Nubian Rights Forum and Others v. Attorney General and Others, Consolidated Petitions No. 56, 58 & 59 of 2019, Kenya High Court, Nairobi, Judgment of 30 January 2020, http://kenyalaw.org/caselaw/cases/view/189189/; see also Republic v. Joe Mucheru, Cabinet Secretary Ministry of Information Communication and Technology & 2 others; ex parte Katiba Institute & Yash Pal Ghai, Judicial Review Application E1138 of 2020), High Court of Kenya (Nairobi), judgment of 14 October 2021 [2021] KEHC 122, http://kenyalaw.org/caselaw/cases/view/220495/index.html. 378 U N H C R | L I T I G AT I N G T H E R I G H T T O A N AT I O N A L I T Y: A G U I D E F O R P R AC T I T I O N E R S 83