The cover of the report, "Litigating Identity Systems" by Privacy International. An image of the statute of justice holding the scales with a blindfold over her eyes and a sword in her hand.

Last week, Privacy International, a longstanding International Human Rights Clinic partner, published “A Guide to Litigating Identity Systems,” which draws on comparative research students Maithili Pai LLM ’20 and Spencer Bateman JD ’20 undertook with the Clinic’s Assistant Director, Anna Crowe LLM’12, last academic year on the human rights implications of national identity systems — data-intensive government programs that link each individuals’ identity with a card or number.

As the guide notes, public discussion on national identity systems has mostly focused on their perceived benefits, which “limits the extent to which groups and individuals concerned about the human rights impact of identity systems can organize around strong arguments challenging those systems, in whole or part.” The guide “seeks to fill that gap by providing a clear, centralised source of the arguments advanced in and discussed by national courts that discuss the negative implications of identity systems, particularly on human rights. It gives advocates a tool for developing arguments in any given national context challenging an identity system, informing debate from a human rights perspective, and further building the repertoire of arguments that can be advanced in the future.”

You can read the guide and learn more about it on Privacy International’s website.