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A scenic image of a green field in South Africa. There is a house in the distance and some lush trees in the foreground. The sky is blue with a few white clouds in places.

Updates from the field – Tshepo’s diary entry January 2020

This is the second field diary entry from Tshepo, one of our Yoti Digital Identity Fellows. His year-long research project is looking at the digital identity landscape in South Africa, with a specific focus on the national smart ID identity programme from a human rights perspective. ***** My research on digital identity and fraud in South Africa has, so far, been incredibly interesting, with most people keen to share their opinions. Encouragingly, many were also eager to share their insights on a variety of issues around the subject of digital identity in particular. My research kicked off in Gauteng, focusing

5 min read
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DataKind UK's #7 Data Science and Ethics Book Club at Yoti

Last week, we had the pleasure of hosting the seventh Data Science and Ethics Book Club, organised by our friends at DataKind UK. This was the final book club of the year and the topic up for discussion was AI and race. This is a hugely important conversation to advance as our lives become increasingly digital and influenced by algorithms and machine learning.   The reading list  The main book that anchored the evening’s talk was Race After Technology by Ruha Benjamin, which provides an accessible but deep understanding about how technology can replicate and exacerbate racial inequality. This was

3 min read
an image of some box-shaped buildings in South Africa.

Digital ID, smart ID and identity in South Africa

This is the first field diary entry from Tshepo, one of our Yoti Digital Identity Fellows. His year-long research project is looking at the digital identity landscape in South Africa, with a specific focus on the national smart ID identity programme from a human rights perspective. *** South African SmartID Cards play a crucial role in identifying and eliminating digital identity fraud in South Africa. Future developments here will likely have repercussions for the entire African continent, given that South Africa is the most developed country in the region. My Fellowship will examine South Africa’s national digital identity programme

6 min read
An image of two people sitting at a table. One person is using a smartphone to take a photo of the other, who is smiling at the camera.

#MarginalizedAadhaar: Exclusion in access to public information for marginalized groups

This is the first field diary entry from Subhashish, one of our Digital Identity Fellows. His year-long research project is focused on the challenges and opportunities within marginalised groups most affected by Aadhaar, India’s national digital ID system. *** In this first of a monthly series of field diary entries, I will be highlighting the challenges and opportunities relating to access to public information for marginalized groups in India. Documentation collected in my research so far includes interactions with two major groups — marginalized communities and other stakeholders that are key to all the digital identity discourses.  The first group included

an image of a person perched on the left-hand side of a light brown stone wall in Argentina. Behind them is a wall that has been painted bright blue. On either side of the pictures are two painted tree trunks.

Who are you when you're looking for a job?

This is the first field diary entry from Paz, one of our Digital Identity Fellows. Her year-long research project is focused on unravelling what digital identity, and identity in general, means to the unemployed and under-employed individuals receiving support from public job centres and local labour NGOs in Gran Buenos Aires and Mar del Plata in Argentina. *** What do you do when you’re job hunting? Do you go out into the streets and hand over your printed CV to anyone that wants it? Most likely, I presume, you do not. Instead, you probably decide to use the internet, and

7 min read
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Adventures in social purpose

It’s been exactly 18 months since I joined Yoti, initially as Head of Social Impact but more recently under a revised title of Head of Social Purpose. We felt the word ‘impact’ was too focused on the end result, and not enough on the process, the DNA and the ethos of what we were trying to do. While we do, of course, want our efforts to have a positive impact, we believe that how you go about creating that impact is equally as important – perhaps more important – as the impact itself.  Most of my career has been spent

7 min read