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deployed as the standard option, either: it really depends on the class of individuals
to be onboarded, and on their expected degree of cooperation; in most borderline
contexts, the degree of cooperation with the authorities (or with the introducer, for
that matter) is not going to be helpful. Also, some new-generation systems of voice
recognition via neuro-heuristics (Połap and Wozniak 2019) might displace issues of
voluntary voice-sample provision – though admittedly raising a whole number
of legal conundrums in relation to brain privacy, mental integrity, psychological
continuity, and generally neurorights.
What I have just mentioned is not the only challenge in choosing the optimal
combination between introducers’ profile and type of biometric data to be collected.
Let me offer an example. One ID2020 pilot project in Indonesia sought to distribute
fuel subsidies upon biometrics collection; the officials implementing the project
noted ‘dust and dirt obstructing clean fingerprint reads, headscarves and veils worn
by women that caused issues with facial recognition software, and network connectivity affecting collection and matching, especially in more rural and remote
areas’, but they also remarked that ‘in regions where local government was more
engaged in the project and in communicating with individuals, it received higher
numbers of volunteers for participation’ (PEW 2020, 30). These passages arguably
expound the paradoxes and contradictions of recruiting introducers to circumvent
the just-mentioned obstacles. Indeed, suppose introducers were recruited by the
Indonesian government: had they been sourced among local representatives, they
could have abdicated to their formal duties (introducers are supposed to mediate, not
to merely represent governmental agents themselves) and perhaps mistrusted by
some “underground” citizens; and yet on the other hand, the program as a whole
would have highly benefitted from local institutions as introducers, to the extent that
mistrust, otherwise, shifts onto the other side (institutions would need to rely on
non-governmental mediators). Indonesia also stands as an intriguing case-study for
considerations around the relationship between population density, population size,
and trust management. With reference to introducer-based onboarding, Pengiran
(2012, 229) postulated that
[i]ntimacy captures how much of the targeted population is already known to the organisation.
Having high levels of intimacy implies that the organisation can be more confident in making
use of an introducer-based scheme, as it can easily support a transitive trust scheme that
extends from known to unknown individuals.7
This is extremely interesting, in that implications may be drawn from a demographic
and error-rate perspectives. One could probably agree that intimacy increases with
7 All emphases removed.