Digital identity systems are being enthusiastically adopted in Asia and Africa as a response to corruption, poor governance, poor public service delivery, and high costs of doing business. The expectation is that digital identity systems will reduce rule violations and improve welfare, particularly of excluded and marginal groups, with the added bonus of improving security. However, for an important subset of violations, better information can strengthen the power of already powerful extractive groups and make it easier for them to exclude and repress others further.
A public lecture titled “Digital Identities: When Inclusion Excludes and Functions Creep by Pallavi Roy and Mushtaq Khan” was organized by BIGD. The lecture was organized to discuss the findings from a working paper titled “Digital identities: a political settlements analysis of asymmetric power and information” which analyzed the evidence and discussed important policy implications, authored by the two key speakers – Dr Pallavi Roy and Professor Mushtaq Khan.
Notable guests in addition to the speakers were – Nahim Razzaque, Member of the Parliament; Kamal Quadir, CEO, bKash; and Anir Chowdhury, Policy Advisor, a2i (Access to Information) Program, Prime Minister’s Office, Bangladesh.