Purpose
Articles
Dec 06, 2019
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
Articles
Nov 27, 2019
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
Articles
Nov 20, 2019
#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
Articles
Nov 14, 2019
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
Articles
Oct 22, 2019
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
Articles
Sep 02, 2019
Meet the 2019 Yoti Digital Identity Fellows
Earlier this year, after an extended period of research and evaluation, we announced the launch of a new Social Purpose Strategy. With an unashamed grassroots focus, each activity is designed to help us better understand, support and empower individuals and organisations working on critical issues of identity, primarily in the Global South. A flagship activity from the Strategy is a Fellowship Programme which we launched in April. Over a two-month application period we invited proposals for research, media, policy or development solutions based on four key themes related to identity or digital identity. With a preference for applicants from