Paper short abstract:

Central to the “calculative logics” of today’s digital identity sector is the promise of inclusivity, the goal of capturing the population as a whole & providing a “legal identity to all." This paper examines Kenya’s Huduma Namba biometric ID system & its aspirations for informational completeness.

Paper long abstract:

Central to the “calculative logics” of today’s digital identity sector is the promise of inclusivity, the goal of capturing the population as a whole and providing a “legal identity to all” (SDG 16.9). Yet, as multiple studies have shown, digital identity systems are frequently built atop colonial and postcolonial identification practices and legacy systems, which were never designed to include all members of the body politic. This paper examines the question of who “counts” and is “counted” by critically interrogating the struggles and controversies that attended Kenya’s recent and short-lived digital ID system known as Huduma Namba (or “Service Number’” in Swahili). Ambitiously aimed at biometrically capturing the entire population, the Huduma Namba project (and its successor Maisha Namba) sought to assign unique identity numbers and smart cards to every resident of Kenya. Stretching concepts from computing and STS infrastructure literature, this paper shows how Huduma Namba remained tethered to longstanding, exclusionary forms of documentary and biometric citizenship and a fraught “politics of numbers.” The prospect of complete, informational accuracy—embodied in the idea of a "single source of truth”—nevertheless became a terrain of struggle and shared language for both government officials and civil society groups.