A Guide to Litigating Identity Systems
c) The dissent in the Aadhaar judgment highlights the ability of the state to
create comprehensive individual profiles based on data linked across
databases used by the identity system.120 Individual profiles increase the
state’s ability to track an individual’s movements and can fix permanent
stigma to an individual’s identity in the system.121
d) The Kenyan High Court explicitly references profiling and surveillance as
forms of potential misuse or unauthorised access, giving rise to the data
protection requirements imposed by the court on the Kenyan national
identity system.122 Moreover, the court prohibits the collection of GPS
coordinates as part of the national identity system, referencing the ability
to use such data to “track and monitor people without their knowledge.”123
The court also finds that centralised databases storing GPS information
could be used to “create ‘watchlists’ or ‘blacklists’,” thereby “leading to a
reversal of the presumption of innocence.”124
e) Justice Sykes of the Jamaican Supreme Court references the danger of
power afforded to the state by the linking of data across state
databases under the Jamaican identity system.125 Justice Sykes quotes
scholar Nancy Liu and states when “unique identification just from
biometric data is combined with a unique identification number is seeded
into multiple databases and the use of the unique number is tracked the
‘biometric data not only allow individuals to be tracked, but create the
potential for the collection of an individual’s information and its
incorporation into a comprehensive profile by linking various databases
together.’”126
120 Aadhaar Judgment, ¶ 247 of dissent.
121
Aadhaar Judgment, ¶ 247 of dissent.
122 Huduma Namba Judgment, ¶ 880.
123 Huduma Namba Judgment, ¶ 768.
124 Huduma Namba Judgment, ¶ 918.
125 Opinion of Justice Sykes, ¶ 246.
126 Opinion of Justice Sykes, ¶ 246.
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