Dr Joseph Atick is renowned for his pioneering work in the field of biometric identification, particularly in facial recognition technology. He is considered one of the founding figures in the development of biometric systems and has contributed significantly to making biometric identification widely accessible and usable.
Dr Atick is also co-founder of ID4Africa, an ‘identity-for-all’ Movement dedicated to helping African nations develop robust and responsible identity ecosystems. This year marks the 10th anniversary of ID4Africa, and ID & Secure Document News™ spoke to Dr Atick about the origin of the Movement and how it has evolved over the past 10 years.
Q: Could you first describe your ground-breaking work with biometrics identification.
A: I have a long history with identity. Initially I came from an academic background.
My objective was to understand if there was something unique about the human body – any signal that we could measure to distinguish one person from billions of others. This was the genesis of biometrics.
I have always believed that identity plays a key role in the economic development of countries because humans rely on identification and interaction. We change how we interact with each other depending on who we are talking to. The objective with biometrics was to create technologies that would emulate that community concept of humans recognising humans.
In a way, this was artificial intelligence, but there was no reason to call it artificial since it was inspired by how humans behave.
Most of the algorithms we developed for biometrics were therefore derived from how we observed the human brain processing signals for recognition. This was a career that led me into industry, where I founded a series of anchor companies in the biometrics space, namely Visionics, Identix and L-1 Identity Solutions (now part of Idemia).
Visionics was the first company to commercialise face recognition technology. In 2000, it went public and in 2002 it merged with lead competitor Identix. I led this Nasdaq-listed company through the formative years of biometrics, and laid the foundation for consolidating the industry through several M&A transactions. These included the merge of Identix with Viisage, in 2006, to form L-1 Identity Solutions.
During this period, our goal was to build a community in the biometrics space by, among other actions, developing codes of conduct. This was because we believed we couldn’t, as one company, push for transformative technologies without having an entire community behind us.
Q: What led you to create the ID4Africa Movement?
A: Towards 2009, it became clear to me that I couldn’t continue pursuing the dream of identity-for-all by remaining in the commercial sector, because the integrity of my interest would have been put into question. So I took another direction.
I started working with the World Bank as a long-term consultant to pursue the idea that identity is a pillar of development.
By then, I had seen what was happening in Africa, and had also witnessed the transformative power of India’s Aadhaar ID system, as well as Indonesia’s digital identity project, which my companies were involved in.
During that time, I encountered Robert Palacios from the World Bank and Alan Gelb from the Centre for Global Development. The three of us were convinced that if everybody had an identity that was robust and inexpensive, it would stimulate the economic and social development of countries, since people would be better able to exercise their rights.
To this end, we founded the ID4D (Identity for Development) movement at the World Bank. However, it soon became clear that because the Bank was a very large organisation – and we were almost like a start-up with regard to our thinking around ID4D – we needed to change our approach. That new approach was the ID4Africa Movement.
ID4Africa was co-founded in 2014 by Gregory Pote, Veronica Ribeiro, and myself, with the aim of being able to enter Africa much faster, without the protocols required for large institutions. One year later, we held our first ID4Africa Annual General Meeting (AGM), in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, attended by 300 people, including 88 representatives of 15 or so African governments.
In the ensuing years, we introduced new institutions to the Movement, as well as launched the Ambassadors Bureaus for senior-level government officials whose organisations were direct stakeholders of identity programme and systems development. We later also set up the ID4Africa LiveCasts to allow the community to stay connected and continue benefiting from our capacity-building initiatives, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Q: How much has the ID4Africa Movement grown over the past 10 years?
A: If we compare where we were back then to where we are today, I would say the numbers tell a story. At this year’s anniversary AGM, we had over 2,000 people attending, of which over 1,000 were from African governments, representing a ten-fold increase compared to the first event. Almost all African countries were in attendance, 48 of which are members of the Movement.
But it’s not all about numbers. It’s about having an agenda that is increasingly mature and actionable and that relates to what countries actually need. It’s also about dealing with structural inequities that emerged over the years, and an agenda that was, by necessity, taken over by a select set of stakeholders, namely governments, development agencies, and the private sector.
To address this inequity, we decided, this year, to bring other stakeholders into the Movement, in the shape of legislators, members of parliament, and civil society actors. Why? Because, at the end of the day, identity concerns everyone and every legitimate voice in this dialogue needs to be heard. And I’m looking for real dialogue.
I’m looking for resistance. Because resistance is what allows us to clearly see any issues and mistakes along the way.
Q: What has been the progress so far with regard to the adoption of digital ID systems in Africa?
A: There are several indicators we can use to assess progress. But first, I must stress that 10 years in the lifespan of a nation and a continent, as well as in a transformative technology such as digital identity, is too short a time to measure real progress.
Let me illustrate what I mean by this in the context of biometric passports. I was involved in the very first meeting that introduced such passports as a concept, in Geneva in 1996.
I walked into the room, where an ICAO meeting was in progress, not knowing what to expect. I announced to the attendees that a solution was needed to link a passport with its owner and that I had that solution. And then I showed them face recognition.
But it took almost 30 years, from 1996 to the present day, for face recognition to become universally adopted. I told the meeting attendees at the time that it would take that long when they commented that the technology was not mature. I told them that adoption cycles didn’t happen overnight, and that the seeds needed laying today so that demand for the technology would come at the same time as the technology reached maturity.
So, here we are 30 years later, and I don’t think there is any country in the world that hasn’t yet issued biometric passports.
But, despite this caveat of 10 years not being long enough to measure real progress, there has nevertheless been progress, particularly in regard to the significant reduction in invisibility on the African continent. When we started the ID4Africa Movement, there were 1.5 billion invisible people in the world (ie. people without official identification), according to statistics from the World Bank. And of this 1.5 billion, more than 60% were in Africa.
Over the years, that number has dropped to around 750 million invisibles, due to the move by many countries to enrol people into population registers. For example, in 2016, Nigeria had less than 7 million people in their database. Today there are 107 million, and I think this will accelerate to reach 200 million people within the next three years. Then there is Tanzania, which has completed its registration. In fact, across the continent, every country has improved its inclusion level.
But that’s only one side of the equation.
The other side is the expansion of digital identity use cases. In many situations, digital identity is being used to empower financial inclusion and monetary transfers.
In other cases, social protection is being empowered. COVID was a blessing in some ways for digital identity because it forced governments to accelerate the way they connect and deliver services to people.
In addition to financial services and social protection, we saw health becoming a key element, not just with vaccination management but health in general. And the mobile revolution has of course made digital identity more palatable and compelling.
However, there is another layer which is very important. There is a greater appreciation and understanding of how we govern identity systems. Governance has become a very important topic and we have observed a sophisticated maturity in this regard. We now have governance frameworks in place that were never there before.
There has also been a significant increase in the understanding of how digital identity systems impact human rights and data privacy. When we started out 10 years ago, there were hardly any data protection laws in place – I would say less than 10% of the continent had such laws. Today, maybe 80% of the continent has them, although many commissions are not yet funded to enforce compliance with these laws.
Q: Despite these advances in digital technologies, aren’t physical identity documents still needed?
A: Yes, very much so. During this year’s ID4Africa meeting, in Cape Town, we launched a poll asking attendees whether they thought physical ID documents would still be needed in 10 years’ time, to which 85% responded ‘yes!’.
This corroborates what I see everywhere.
I have travelled to many places in Africa and I usually ask the same question to people in remote areas: what is identity to you? And the answer that consistently comes back is: ‘I want a card that has me on it, and the stamp of the state on it’. This demonstrates people’s pride in having something physical to prove they belong to a particular country. However, when I ask these people about digital identity, about numbers, to them it’s too theoretical.
Every year, I go through that same experience when I renew my residence card as an American citizen living in France – the joy of receiving a physical document showing I belong in this country. Imagine, therefore, how it is for people who’ve been waiting many years for an identity card, to finally receive one.
Q: Are there any countries in Africa that do not have an ID system?
A: There isn’t any African country that doesn’t have some form of ID, even if it’s rudimentary.
In many informal sectors in Africa, people have historically proven their identity through the use of multiple pieces of paper, such as reference letters from the village chief, the mayor, or the school. In a way, the continent has relied on credentials that are, in themselves, weak in terms of providing evidence of identity, but when collectively presented as a stack of 6-10 documents from different sources, they can be quite convincing in proving somebody’s identity.
However, the effort involved in obtaining these documents has discouraged many people from trying to acquire them, especially in rural areas. This has created barriers to entry into the formal economy that are much too wide and high to overcome, and that therefore leading to exclusion. This is why countries now need to move forward with implementing one national secure ID document ‘to rule them all’, and ID4Africa is here to help them do that.
Q: What needs to be done to accelerate progress?
A: The identity ecosystem continues to attract politics and we need to depoliticise identity so that government employees are appointed based on their merit and desire to serve the people, as opposed to political motives. There is currently too much ‘stop and go’ as regimes change and projects are restarted.
If regimes can make identity programmes non-political and allow opposing parties and every sector of society to participate in them, they can make a huge impact. So far, digital identity is such a new thing that governments try to take credit for it. I think it’s time for us to just get it done, without taking credit.
Q: Will that day ever come?
A: I think it will come. I have learnt that there are certain forces in life that are inevitable. Although politicians might delay and interfere in certain initiatives, sooner or later the wave rises and becomes so large that even political will cannot stop it. Look at what happened with the symbolic collapse of the Berlin Wall.
To me, when people realise they are being deprived of their fundamental right to an identity, it is their collective power that will ultimately make it happen.
We need to have continuation in society, and we are already seeing this in many places in Africa. Nigeria, Ghana, and Tanzania had regime changes, but these changes came with absolute continuity.
Q: Which countries stand out for you in terms of implementing digital ID and registration systems?
A: There are so many countries that stand out and each for a different reason. While some have not yet reached the finish line, the wisdom and enthusiasm they have demonstrated in their approach to digital identity has been exceptional.
If you force me to give names, though, I would say Nigeria for its size, Ethiopia for its thoughtfulness, Somalia for its enthusiasm and engagement, Morocco for its sophistication, and South Africa for being the first country to really embrace gender neutral policies.
Q: Any final words?
A: I have been fortunate enough to have a career that is very diverse. I started as a scientist, then became an entrepreneur, then the head of a public company with 1,700 employees. But I can tell you that of all those phases of my life, ID4Africa is the one I am enjoying the most, because I feel so rewarded by the energy and passion that I am surrounded by and that drives my own enthusiasm.
At ID4Africa, we believe we are giving something to the continent that will define the future – not just for Africa but for the world. Because everywhere I go in Africa, I am struck by the number of young people there. In many parts of Europe, Asia, and America, on the other hand, I hardly see children anymore.
But when I go to Africa I see the energy of the children there... and that is the future.
The next ID4Africa AGM will be held on 20-23 May 2025 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, hosted by the Office of the Prime Minister. The central theme of the AGM will be ‘Digital Identity at Scale: Prioritising Use, Accelerating Impact’.
