Policy Department, Directorate-General for External Policies Digital identification systems The world’s two largest digital identification systems are ‘Huduma Namba’ in Kenya and ‘Aadhaar’ in India. Among other data, they involve the collection of fingerprints, retina and iris patterns, voice patterns, and other identifiers. They determine access to essential government services (such as voting, registering birth certificates and civil marriages, or paying taxes) or access to pensions and unemployment benefits. However, there is evidence that, ‘when trying to access public services through these systems, certain racial and ethnic minority groups in both countries find that they are excluded, while others face logistical barriers (...) that in effect can result in de facto exclusion from services to which they are entitled’ 55. Furthermore, people with disabilities have ‘experienced discrimination for not being able to provide fingerprint or iris scans’ 56.
2.2
Emergence of public health surveillance systems
Apart from the expansion of existing surveillance systems, the COVID-19 crisis has also led to the unveiling of many high-tech tools specifically aimed at tackling the pandemic. The most prominent example is a rapid rollout of pandemic-related mobile applications used for contact tracing, quarantine enforcement, social distancing monitoring, or symptom tracking, sometimes combined with a health status code. Such smartphone apps have been introduced in at least 54 countries across the globe 57. These technologies may offer benefits to policymakers, the medical community, and to society at large (for example, by supporting efforts to protect public health and manage the crisis), but their widespread application also carries significant implications for fundamental rights. In many instances, these tools have been developed with minimal protection against abuse (such as excessive use by law enforcement agencies for non-pandemicrelated purposes), without sufficient evidence to confirm their efficacy to protect public health or appropriate scrutiny into whether they are proportionate to counter-epidemic efforts 58. Even though the use of mobile location data may reveal sensitive information about people’s identity, location, behaviour, associations, and activities, many developers have largely ignored principles of privacy-by-design, which would ensure that privacy considerations are built into a tool’s architecture and software. Apps are often closed sourced, centralised (sending unencrypted data to centralised government servers) and with insufficient cyber-security standards, allowing data to be shared with multiple institutions. This is particularly problematic in the case of repressive regimes, where human rights defenders, independent journalists, or opposition leaders are routinely targeted, as apps that generate sensitive health and social networking data about these individuals increase opportunities for abusive surveillance. Moreover, in some countries (Singapore, Ukraine, and Bahrain, for example) apps have been made mandatory, having a disproportionate and discriminatory impact on certain populations, particularly when non-digital alternatives are not provided (see Table 1). In other countries, such as China, India, and Turkey, COVIDrelated health status and contact-tracing mobile apps, even though not officially mandatory, have been made gatekeepers for access to essential public services, such as public transport and other public spaces, workplaces or shopping malls 59.
UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, op. cit. par. 40. UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, op. cit., par. 15. 56 UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, ibidem. 57 Freedom House, ‘Freedom of the Net 2020 Report’, 2020, op. cit., p. 15. 58 Joint civil society statement, 'States use of digital surveillance technologies to fight pandemic must respect human rights', 2020. 59 Freedom House, ‘Freedom of the Net. 2020 Report’, 2020, op. cit., p. 15. 55
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