Digital Identity, Data Justice, and Human Capabilities: A Technology Impact Assessment of Uganda's National Identification System

Digital identity systems have emerged as a foundational component of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) and are increasingly promoted as instruments for improving service delivery, enhancing financial inclusion, strengthening state capacity, and advancing Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16.9 on legal identity for all. Despite growing investment in national digital identity systems across Africa, existing scholarship remains divided between studies emphasizing developmental benefits and those highlighting risks of exclusion, surveillance, and governance failures. Few studies integrate these perspectives within a comprehensive Technology Impact Assessment (TIA) framework.

This paper applies a Technology Impact Assessment framework to evaluate Uganda's National Identification System and its implications for inclusion, human capabilities, and data justice. Drawing on Technology Impact Assessment scholarship, the Capability Approach, and Data Justice theory, the study examines how digital identity systems shape access to services, opportunities, and rights among different population groups. The analysis is based on qualitative document analysis of legal frameworks, policy documents, academic literature, civil society reports, and empirical studies relating to Uganda's digital identity ecosystem.

The findings indicate that Uganda's National Identification System has generated important benefits in civil identification, administrative coordination, financial inclusion, and service delivery. However, these benefits are unevenly distributed and accompanied by significant challenges, including registration barriers, exclusion of vulnerable populations, privacy concerns, governance weaknesses, and increasing dependency on digital identity for access to public services. Women, older persons, rural populations, and individuals lacking supporting documentation face disproportionate risks of exclusion. The analysis further demonstrates that the developmental value of digital identity systems cannot be assessed solely through enrollment rates or technical performance but must also consider their effects on substantive freedoms, participation, and equitable access to opportunities.

The paper contributes to scholarship on digital identity and Digital Public Infrastructure by integrating Technology Impact Assessment, the Capability Approach, and Data Justice into a single analytical framework. It argues that digital identity systems should be evaluated not only as technological infrastructures but also as governance and development infrastructures whose success depends on their ability to expand human capabilities, minimize exclusion, promote data justice, and support rights-based digital governance.