![]() "For humanitarian agencies like the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the World Food Program (WFP) that have embedded biometrics into their service delivery, they are now facing difficult decisions about how to minimise data records and access points that put people in danger, while also trying to maintain their programmes in support of millions in Afghanistan facing displacement, food insecurity, poverty, and more."Īnd while Ms Tackett does not have evidence of international organisations' databases being compromised, she said "time is of the essence" when it comes to securing data. Many of these international groups are now racing to do what they can to secure the data they have gathered.Ĭarolyn Tackett, deputy advocacy director at Access Now told Sky News: The 2019 Afghan election, for example, used voter verification machines with fingerprint, eye and facial recognition capabilities in a bid to curb election fraud.Īccess Now also estimates that there may be several other digital identity systems using biometrics held by humanitarian organisations like the UN and World Food Programme. "I think it's probably wise to assume that the Taliban have got their hands on everything that the Afghan government had a couple of weeks ago, which was a lot of information on people," said Mr Dooley.Īfghan families in UK fear for relatives in Kabul Two government-run biometric databases were also recently operational in Afghanistan: the controversial e-Tazkira identity cards and US-supported Afghanistan Automated Biometric Identity System. ![]() Human Rights First have produced guides on how to erase digital history and evade misuse of biometric data. "Will people want to go to hospital if they know that when they come into contact with the authorities, they will have access to biometric data and there's no hiding who you are, and what your history was?" he told Sky News. The consequences could be fatal, with reports that Taliban fighters are going house to house to find people who worked with foreign forces.īut there are also less immediate implications which might stop people hiding from the Taliban from accessing services such as healthcare and further education, according to Brian Dooley of Human Rights First, a US-based human rights group. It’s not known how many people’s sensitive, identifying information can now be retrieved by the group as a result. Reports indicate that HIIDE equipment - and therefore the large centralised databases of personal information they are linked to - was seized by the Taliban last week. He was released after the records search turned up nothing, he said.Twitter Due to your consent preferences, you’re not able to view this. The commander said that he had been detained by the Taliban in November and that the militants would have killed him had they found his personal information in their databases, the report said. ![]() government and international organizations, according to the report.Ī former commander in the Afghan military told the group that the Taliban scanned his irises using a data collection tool once used by the U.S. ![]() ![]() This information could be used to identify those who worked for the U.S. Human rights analysts believe the Taliban may be using the data to track down former Afghan soldiers and others who aided U.S. Brandon Withers, assigned to 2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 6, uses handheld identity detection equipment to record the biometric information of an Afghan national in Ganbum Rece, Helmand province, Afghanistan, July 18, 2012. ![]()
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