After the Taliban took control of the country, thousands of Afghans who worked hard to ensure the safety of their families had another concern: biometric databases and their own digital history could be used to track and target them.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that human rights and violations of women and girls are “chilling”. Amnesty International said on Monday that thousands of Afghans-including academics, journalists and Activist-“Faced a serious risk of Taliban retaliation.”
After years of promoting the digitization of the country’s database and introducing digital ID and biometric technology for voting, activists warned that these technologies can be used to target and attack vulnerable groups.
“We understand that the Taliban may now have access to various biometric databases and devices in Afghanistan,” Human Rights First wrote on Twitter on Monday.
“This technology may include access to databases with fingerprints and iris scans, and include facial recognition technology,” the organization added.
The U.S.-based advocacy group quickly released a Persian version of a guide on how to delete digital history – it was made for Hong Kong activists last year – and also wrote a book on how to evade biometrics. Manual.
The guide says that techniques to bypass facial recognition include lowering your head and wearing things to cover up facial features or make-up, although fingerprints and iris scans are difficult to bypass.
“With this data, it becomes more difficult to hide and confuse the identity of you and your family, and this data can also be used to enrich your contacts and network,” said Welton Chang, Chief Technology Officer of Human Rights First.
He added that it can also be used to “create a new class structure-job applicants will compare their biometric data with the database, and may refuse to work because of links to the previous government or security forces.”
He told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that the most “terrible situation” is to use the data to target anyone involved in the previous government, working in an international non-profit organization, or human rights defender.
Door to door
According to local media reports, even five years ago, the Taliban were still using government biometric systems to target members of the security forces, checking their fingerprints against a database.
On Monday, just a few hours after the militants entered the capital Kabul, people feared that this had already happened.
A Twitter user named Mustafa said on Monday that “the Taliban began conducting house-to-house searches” of government officials, former members of the security forces and people working for foreign non-profit organizations, adding that the reporter’s home was also searched. .
A Kabul resident said in a private message that she had heard of door-to-door inspections and Islamic radicals were using “biometric identification machines.”
The Taliban said in a statement that it “assures all citizens that it will continue to protect their lives, property and honor and create a peaceful and safe environment for their beloved country.”
However, Access Now Asia Pacific Policy Director Raman Jit Singh Chima said that digital rights groups have received “a large number” of requests from civil society groups and activists to ensure their digital existence.
“We are also very concerned about the databases maintained by aid agencies and other groups, and are worried about whether mitigation measures are being taken to delete or eliminate information that can be used to target the population,” he said.
He added that the digital ID tazkira can expose certain ethnic groups, and even telecommunications companies have “large amounts of data” that can be used to track and locate people.
Chang said that the responsibility for protecting the data system is ultimately the responsibility of the Afghan government, although the US military and its allies may play a role in “designing the system first and helping to implement it.”
He added: “In terms of risk assessment and prevention of misuse of the creation, maintenance and handover of the system, there may not be enough thoughtful plans at the beginning of the creation, maintenance and handover of the system.”
At the same time, the Afghans are doing everything they can to clean up their digital data.
BBC reporter Sana Safi wrote on Twitter on Sunday that boys and men “crazyly delete the messages they have sent, the music they have listened to, and the photos they have taken on their phones”.
