Digital Identity Platforms: A Data Justice Perspective

Abstract

Digital identity platforms, designed to enable secure and unique authentication of users, are widely depicted as a means to strengthen public service systems. Yet, this vision is questioned by studies illuminating how digital authentication results in exclusions, data violations and other forms of harm generated on users. This paper contributes a vision of digital identity inspired by the concept of data justice, which views data in terms of the fairness with which users are seen, represented and treated. Drawing on a data justice framework, we study a dataset of web sources (2021-2022) in terms of the legal, informational and design-related forms of injustice stemming from digital identification. By doing so we contribute to the emerging literature on digital identity, offering a conceptual lens to understand and ultimately combat the injustice generated through it.