How Zimbabwe’s biometric ID scheme — and China’s AI aspirations — threw a wrench in elections · Global Voices
Indelible ink on the finger of a voter. Photo by <PERSON> via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.
Editor's note: This piece is part of a series on digital ID systems, produced in partnership with The Engine Room. Visit the Digital ID microsite to read a full research report on this global trend, and case studies on five countries that have deployed digital ID systems, including Zimbabwe.
In July 2018, Zimbabweans went to the polls for the first time since the ousting of long-time (now deceased) leader <PERSON>, who had held power for nearly 30 years. This may have been promising from an outsider's perspective, but the heavily contested elections did not inspire confidence in Zimbabwean voters.
Weeks after polling day, when results had not yet been released, hundreds of people took to the streets of the capital Harare to protest the delays, with many fearing that the Zimbabwean Electoral Commission (ZEC) had rigged the results in favor of then-Vice President <PERSON>, who took office shortly after <PERSON>’s ouster.
But vicious party politics were not the only reason Zimbabweans distrusted the results of this particular election. In the months leading up to the vote, something else had been happening, something new: The government had begun to collect citizens’ biometric data, as part of the voter registration process.
In previous elections, citizens could visit any polling station and vote just by showing their conventional ID cards, which contained their name, ID number, date and place of birth and date of issue. After voting, one's finger would be smeared with indelible ink to avoid double voting. Now, citizens suddenly had to submit their photos, fingerprints, national identity numbers and home addresses into one integrated and digitized system. If they did not do this, they were told, they might be barred from voting. 424
This increased public fears of monitoring and intimidation, already a common theme for elections in Zimbabwe.
The system was touted both by ruling party and opposition voices as a strong guard against “ghost” voters and other types of election fraud. But its underlying technology was not built with these issues in mind. Nor was it built in Zimbabwe.
China’s ‘AI foray’ into southern Africa
The government of Zimbabwe signed a strategic partnership with CloudWalk Technology, a Chinese company that has become a leader in the field of facial recognition, in March 2018. The objective of the partnership was to commence a large-scale facial recognition program in Zimbabwe, which government officials said would be used to preserve “law and order,” and then expanded to other public sector programs.
<PERSON>, a special adviser to President <PERSON> (and Zimbabwe’s former ambassador to China) told the Herald :
An ordinary Zimbabwean probably won’t believe that you can buy your groceries or pay your electricity bill by scanning your face, but this is where this technology is taking us…as government, we are happy because we are moving with the rest of the world.
Part of the Chinese government’s Belt and Road initiative , this agreement made Zimbabwe one of the first countries in southern Africa to adopt this technology.
The relationship between the two countries is not new — with hundreds of millions of dollars invested in various sectors of Zimbabwe’s ailing economy, China has a strong interest in Zimbabwe’s political affairs. Chinese President <PERSON> has frequently expressed his desire to spread China’s communist leadership style to political parties worldwide and he has found a willing taker in Zimbabwe’s ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front.
China is eager to produce the world’s best AI and Chinese companies are turning to Africa to speed up their algorithms’ diversity training. Rolling out the technology in a majority African population will allow CloudWalk to more clearly identify other ethnicities , potentially placing the Chinese firm steps ahead of US and European developers.
Graphic rendering of a facial structure algorithm, via Pikrepo. (CC 0)
CloudWalk uses 3D light facial software, which is purportedly better than other facial recognition programs at reading dark-skinned faces. The deal allows CloudWalk to train its algorithms on data taken from Zimbabwean citizens. The resulting information is meant to help China build one of the world’s most inclusive and racially-diversified facial recognition databases.
But at what cost to Zimbabwe’s fragile democracy, and to Zimbabweans’ privacy?
Digital ID and distrust in the 2018 election
Opposition parties and civil society organizations had in fact pressed for electoral reforms that included the adoption of the biometric voter registration (BVR), with the hope of eradicating the persistent problem of “ghost” voters in almost every election. 424