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Across Africa, an ambitious technological transformation is taking shape. Valued at more than USD 1 billion and heavily financed through World Bank loans and European grants, the project aims to build continent-wide biometric digital identification systems. These systems collect fingerprints, iris scans, and facial images from hundreds of millions of people.
Marketed as tools of modernisation—promising streamlined governance, efficient public services, and digital inclusion—the reality is far more troubling, according to a major new report by the African Digital Rights Network (ADRN) and the Institute of Development Studies (IDS).
Rather than opening doors, biometric digital IDs are increasingly locking people out. For millions, access to essential services such as food aid, healthcare, banking, and even voting now depends on submitting sensitive biometric data to systems that are frequently insecure, poorly regulated, and costly to maintain. The report warns that this is producing a new form of digital stratification—a “digital caste system” where basic rights are conditional rather than guaranteed.
At the heart of the problem is compulsion. The report, Biometric Digital ID in Africa: Progress and Challenges to Date, finds that in many of the ten countries studied, biometric identification is fast becoming a prerequisite for exercising fundamental rights.
Ethiopia: The rollout of the “Fayda” ID is accelerating. From January 2025, all bank customers in Addis Ababa must register for a Fayda ID to open an account, and by September 2025, the ID will be required for school enrolment—effectively tying access to education to biometric registration.Malawi: Biometric IDs are now mandatory for SIM card ownership, banking, and social protection programmes. Severe administrative bottlenecks have forced the government to accept expired cards until January 2026, as renewals cannot be processed quickly enough.Botswana: The “Omang” card is legally required for citizens over 16 to access nearly all public services.
This dependency creates a profound contradiction. Social welfare schemes designed to reduce poverty increasingly require digital tools—smartphones, internet access, and stable electricity—that many of the poorest citizens do not have. In Liberia, where fewer than 15% of people were registered by late 2024, the shift toward digital-only identification risks pushing the majority of the population into legal and civic limbo.
Perhaps most alarming is how these biometric systems are being financed and repurposed for surveillance, often with external support. In Senegal, the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa invested €28 million in the national biometric database. Although framed as a civil registration initiative, the report reveals that its operational mandate includes identifying “irregular Senegalese nationals” for return.
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In effect, European funding is helping to construct African biometric infrastructures that extend border control and migration policing far beyond Europe’s physical frontiers—raising serious questions about sovereignty, consent, and the long-term consequences for civil liberties across the continent.