Biometric civil registry systems deployed in Rwanda

In 2007, Rwanda began collecting biometric data on all citizens. A smart card was also released. In 2014, the new national body for this process, NIDA NIDA (National Identification Agency) began trying to integrate all forms of data about a person to a single civil registry, and issued a smart card for this purpose. By 2019, this had achieved 99 percent coverage, according to the government. The ID is required for access to all services, including banking, and to cross the borders of the country. In 2022, the government states that they will have achieved universal biometric birth registry. Academic researchers characterise Rwandas use of surveillance technologies as 'intense' and oriented toward social control. The state may be overstating its benevolent use of the technologies due to a desire to maintain the perception of a strong central state. Historically technologies of surveillance in Rwanda have been used for social control.

Details

Products and Institutions:

Product Deployed	Unknown Products 0112
Institutions ⠉	Government of Rwanda
Datasets	Unknown Dataset 0177
Search software

Status and Events:

Status	Ongoing
Events	Start (2 January 2007, Documented, , No description)
Start Date
End Date

Users:

Involved Entities
Managed by	Government of Rwanda
Used by

Location:

City	Kigali
Country ⠉	Rwanda

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Description[ ]

Rwanda began computerising its civil registry in 2007 with biometric data for the smart card. In 2014, the NIDA (National Identification Agency) was established, which aims to centralise all data to one card. By 2019, it had reached almost 99 percent coverage for the ID. The ID data is required to access all government services, banking, and to travel across the borders. NIDA were also attempting to integrate various datasets into one national CVRS.

Unique NIN from Birth shared across systems.
• CRVS to generate statistic/Dashboards • Digital certificates (Ex : Birth, Marriage, Adoption, Death, …) to be generated and archived by the same system

3

A researcher in 2016 outlined the nature of biometric ID collection in Rwanda. They also describe the process of this collection as particularly intense in Rwanda and as having social control functions.

In 1996 the postgenocide government, responding to the symbolism of the “deadly” ethnic ID card, instituted a new de-ethnicized indangamuntu, which soon came to be read as a symbol of the nation-building effort. But the underlying issue—registration and its facilitation of tracing, sorting, and targeting—was never problematized in itself. In fact, the system of identification became much stronger than it had been previously. In 2009 new digital ID cards were released, and by 2014 the brand new National Identification Agency (NIDA) (established in 2011) had issued “smart ID cards,” which collate a wide array of information in one document using biometric information, to 80 percent of the population 1

The history of the Rwandan state’s “mundane sights” is an intriguing one. Over time, as the article has demonstrated, the state and its oversight structures have increased both in range and intensity. There have been numerous points of intensification, and colonialism presents but one relevant historical juncture. Nevertheless, striking continuities are evident across historical epochs, despite claims of decisive, and even revolutionary, breaks with the past. The deep structures of power—as represented in technologies of surveillance or the presence of the state in the local milieu—have remained largely intact, even as their uses and platforms have shifted and multiplied 1

In 2022, the aim to biometrically register 100 percent of all births is viewed as close to achieved.

The government of Rwanda is keen on attaining its main objective as outlined in its Voter & ID Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) strategy 2017-2022, which is to ensure universal birth registration for all newborns in the country by the end of this year 2

References

^ x
^ "Rwanda National ID Agency". (2019) <https://www.id4africa.com/2019_event/presentations/PS1/5-Josephine-Mukesha-NIDA-Rwanda.pdf>
a b Purdeková, Andrea. “Mundane Sights” of Power: The History of Social Monitoring and Its Subversion in Rwanda. , 2016.
^ "{Nigeria, Rwanda progress in national childbirth registration programs".

Biometric civil registry systems deployed in Rwanda
Excluded from graph
Deployment Status	Ongoing
Deployment Start Date
Deployment End Date
Events	* uses Record type Property:Has event Start (2 January 2007, Documented, , No description)
City	Kigali
Country	Rwanda
Involved Entities
Keywords
Technology Deployed	Unknown Products 0112
Information Certainty	Documented
Primary sources	1, 2, 3
Datasets Used	Unknown Dataset 0177
Deployment Type	Surveillance
runs search software
managed by	Government of Rwanda
used by
Potentially used by
Information Certainty	0
Summary	In 2007, Rwanda began collecting biometric data on all citizens. A smart card was also released. In 2014, the new national body for this process, NIDA NIDA (National Identification Agency) began trying to integrate all forms of data about a person to a single civil registry, and issued a smart card for this purpose. By 2019, this had achieved 99 percent coverage, according to the government. The ID is required for access to all services, including banking, and to cross the borders of the country. In 2022, the government states that they will have achieved universal biometric birth registry. Academic researchers characterise Rwandas use of surveillance technologies as 'intense' and oriented toward social control. The state may be overstating its benevolent use of the technologies due to a desire to maintain the perception of a strong central state. Historically technologies of surveillance in Rwanda have been used for social control.