Mainstreaming Surveillance Through the Biometrification of Everyday Life

Abstract

In this chapter, we explore trends in the use of biometric data collection for voting and immigration purposes in the SADC region. The chapter focuses on how selected countries in the region have latched onto the ‘biometrics bandwagon’ without putting in place adequate legal frameworks and oversight systems to protect data injustices, harms and abuses. It critiques the growing trend of biometrics-enabled surveillance regimes in the SADC region. It exposes the fallacies that biometric identification systems are ‘magic bullets’ that automatically lead to free, fair and credible elections. It critiques the discourse of techno-solutionism immanent in the deployment and marketing of biometric technologies in the global South. It demonstrates how biometric data collection has enhanced the data collection and surveillance capacities of the state and corporate entities. The chapter also interrogates the inherent vulnerabilities and structural loopholes in border security, civil registry, immigration and election management systems, and the extent to which biometric technology has been offering protection to these threats. It argues that private and public data collection under the guise of biometrics constitutes one of the avenues through which privacy violations or abuses of personal information are taking place at the hands of the state and private sectors in the SADC region. Thus, the efficacy and sustainability of its uses will be interrogated using the capturing of biometric identification data during elections in Zimbabwe, Namibia and Zambia as well as the use of similar technologies for policing, social protection programmes and security purposes in South Africa and Botswana. The appropriate legal framework of its use and its enforcement will be examined, that is, protection of personal data and privacy, non-discrimination and inclusion of vulnerable groups are key aspects that will be discussed in the chapter.