Refugee experiences of identity documents and digitisation in India and Myanmar

Drawing on the authors’ joint activism on the rights of refugees and stateless people in India and Myanmar, this article considers how digital ID systems can be used to exclude minorities.
India’s e-ID system has been hailed for increasing social inclusion and bureaucratic efficiency. Whilst it has brought benefits to many in India, refugee experiences reveal a darker side of digitisation. Combined with increasingly hostile registration and surveillance procedures for noncitizens, refugees suffer economic and social exclusion, harassment and human rights violations. Myanmar has attempted to digitise its own ID system and has piloted technologies from China, India and elsewhere in the midst of forced displacement and conflict. Myanmar’s latest efforts to implement an e-ID system reportedly include further cooperation with the Indian Government. Myanmar’s military regime already uses identity documents to reinforce systems of surveillance, control and persecution. There is a real risk that if Myanmar were to fully adopt a digital ID system, the rights of minority and opposition groups would be further curtailed.