A Guide to Litigating Identity Systems
their privacy is being protected without the ability to control what
information is shared about them and how that information is used, and
what information is used to identify them.
c) Justice Sykes of the Jamaican Supreme Court identifies the right to
anonymity to be an important component of the right to privacy when
discussing the Jamaican identity system.108
38. The storage of biometric data for authentication in an identity system
amounts to an interference with the right to privacy because it increases the
risk of identity theft, in which the information necessary for using another
individual’s legal identity is stolen and is used to further access other
personal information or use services and benefits in another person’s name.
a) The Mauritian Supreme Court rejected the indefinite storage of fingerprint
data in a centralised register, partly for fear that data could be stolen
from identity cards.109 The data necessary for identity theft could be
obtained through a variety of hacking attacks, from cloning government
credentials for access to the system, engaging in a proxy attack via the
government’s portal to the database, or taking data from the local
machines used to upload data to the centralised register.110 A centralised
database, which can never be foolproof, can expose all data stored on
the database in the event its security is compromised.111
b) Justice Sykes of the Jamaican Supreme Court refers to concerns that
data stored as part of the identity system could fall into the hands of
third parties, including hackers using Trojan Horse or spoofing attacks on
the database and exposing an individual’s sensitive data like medical
information.112
108 Opinion of Justice Sykes, ¶ 247(A)(11).
109 Madhewoo, 2015 SCJ 177 at 30.
110
Madhewoo 2015 SCJ 177 at 30.
111
See Madhewoo, 2015 SCJ 177 at 30.
112
Opinion of Justice Sykes, ¶ 54.
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