we were deleting our posts & profiles & whatever we achieved over past two decades. She posted: "The last days in Kabul while we, four friends, Afghan women journalists were hiding ourselves in d house. It’s a feeling shared by many Afghans who have had to erase evidence of their accomplishments for fear of reprisals.įatimah Hossaini, a journalist and women's activist, shared an image of herself and three other female Afghan colleagues deleting their digital history in the days following the Taliban's capture of Kabul. ![]() "It was against the commitments I made to my friends," he said. He told Sky News he felt "scared, shameful and disgraced" to have to do it. "I deleted everything belonging to my career - even my birthday wishes from expats, who were mostly UK citizens," he said. He’s concerned that his connection to a Western company may make him a target of the Taliban. He deleted his LinkedIn in the following days. He told Sky News that on the first day the Taliban took over he deleted everything from his Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram. His name has been changed to protect his identity. ![]() This includes the thousands of people who either worked directly with foreign forces as interpreters or worked in adjacent organisations in the years since US forces entered the country.Ībdul worked as a contractor for a Western security firm. Since 10 August, many Afghans have scrambled to eliminate traces of their previous lives on social media for fear of retribution by the Taliban. "And it is likely only a matter of time before the Taliban present them with the same ultimatum." ![]() "It is standard form around the world for host governments to require access to databases for purposes of migration, law enforcement, and more," she said. "For humanitarian agencies like the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the World Food Program (WFP) that have embedded biometrics into their service delivery, they are now facing difficult decisions about how to minimise data records and access points that put people in danger, while also trying to maintain their programmes in support of millions in Afghanistan facing displacement, food insecurity, poverty, and more."Īnd while Ms Tackett does not have evidence of international organisations' databases being compromised, she said "time is of the essence" when it comes to securing data. Many of these international groups are now racing to do what they can to secure the data they have gathered.Ĭarolyn Tackett, deputy advocacy director at Access Now told Sky News: The 2019 Afghan election, for example, used voter verification machines with fingerprint, eye and facial recognition capabilities in a bid to curb election fraud.Īccess Now also estimates that there may be several other digital identity systems using biometrics held by humanitarian organisations like the UN and World Food Programme. "I think it's probably wise to assume that the Taliban have got their hands on everything that the Afghan government had a couple of weeks ago, which was a lot of information on people," said Mr Dooley.Īfghan families in UK fear for relatives in Kabul Two government-run biometric databases were also recently operational in Afghanistan: the controversial e-Tazkira identity cards and US-supported Afghanistan Automated Biometric Identity System. Human Rights First have produced guides on how to erase digital history and evade misuse of biometric data. "Will people want to go to hospital if they know that when they come into contact with the authorities, they will have access to biometric data and there's no hiding who you are, and what your history was?" he told Sky News. ![]() The consequences could be fatal, with reports that Taliban fighters are going house to house to find people who worked with foreign forces.īut there are also less immediate implications which might stop people hiding from the Taliban from accessing services such as healthcare and further education, according to Brian Dooley of Human Rights First, a US-based human rights group. It’s not known how many people’s sensitive, identifying information can now be retrieved by the group as a result. Reports indicate that HIIDE equipment - and therefore the large centralised databases of personal information they are linked to - was seized by the Taliban last week. Twitter Due to your consent preferences, you’re not able to view this.
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