Event

After over two years of intense negotiations, the EU recently agreed to their Digital Identity Reform (eIDAS). In this talk we analyse the result, what safeguards we can realistically expect and how our online and offline interactions might change because of this new European Digital Identity Wallet. Other regions in the world are much further ahead in this issue and we will also try to learn from the experiences from India and Kenya. Both countries had unique strategies from civil society to fight back against the introduction of digital identity systems, focusing on interrogating their design, raising awareness, strategic litigation and civil disobedience post deployment . Lastly, this issue pops up in many countries and is actively promoted as "Digital Public Infrastructure" by global organisations like UNDP and the World Bank - often with little to know credence to privacy or local realities. This global trend is very worrying due to the shiny veneer hiding their dark reality of exploitation by local and foreign actors. We will showcase strategies how local actors have resisted and shaped the introduction of these systems with a combination of technical, advocacy, and interdisciplinary ally building. Our goal is to provide knowledge about how exactly these systems work, who benefits from them and what strategies could be deployed against them.