Identity Exclusion in the United States

"Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law." That is article 6 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And we know that recognition itself unlocks other rights: access to education, healthcare, travel, marriage, work, and economic participation all depend upon legal recognition.

And yet: in the United States, surveys indicate that up to 9% of citizens (21-million people) lack essential documentation to prove their citizenship and realize those rights. Why is that?

18 months ago, Elizabeth authored "Human-Centric Identity: for Government Officials" which explored different identity paradigms and how to build identity systems that sustained and promoted human rights. Since then, she has worked closely with tools and frameworks to assess identity implementations - including the OIX Guide to Trust Frameworks, the UNDP Safeguards for Digital Public Infrastructure, and the UNDP Framework for Legal Digital Identity.

In this session, Elizabeth presents an analysis of the US identity ecosystem using the UNDP frameworks and with crucial inputs from I.D. Ministry, a faith-based U.S. non-profit that supports individuals to obtain foundational identity documentation. It explores the extent to which the US identity paradigm delivers on Article 6 (and other human rights instruments) with consideration to privacy law, identity theft, and why so many people struggle to access foundational documents - as well as current considerations and what we can do about it.