Myanmar: Human Rights Analysis of Biometric Digital ID Systems is foundational for the realisation of other human rights, because represents an acknowledgement that each person has rights and duties under the law. As noted by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights: “[T]he failure to recognize juridical personality harms human dignity, because it denies absolutely an individual’s condition of being a subject of rights and renders him vulnerable to non-observance of his rights by the State or other individuals.”5 International human rights law also recognises the right of every child to be registered immediately after birth, as well as to have a name and acquire a nationality. This right is protected by Article 7 of the Convention of the Rights of the Child, which Myanmar has ratified, as well as Article 24(2) of the ICCPR. Such registration should be provided to all children without discrimination and regardless of the status of their parents. However, lack of birth registration should not be an obstacle to accessing any key national service.6 Recognising the importance of birth registration for ensuring the legal recognition of children, Sustainable Development Goal Target 16.9 calls on States to provide “legal identity for all, including birth registration”.7 In addition to registration of birth, other legal documents, such as ID cards, can serve as proof of legal identity. Practically, in many countries, proof of legal identity is necessary for a range of basic activities, such as accessing social services, voting, obtaining licences, employment and so on. In theory, the ability to exercise one’s fundamental human rights, including recognition as a person before the law, should not be conditioned on holding an identity card (absent a compelling reason, justified under international human rights standards). In practice, however, proof of legal identity is often necessary to full realisation of a range of fundamental human rights, including the right to legal personhood. For this reason, government programmes which ensure that individuals can obtain legal ID documents freely may be crucial to the protection of fundamental human rights and can promote practical realisation of the right to recognition as a person before the law. However, legal ID programmes can also violate human rights or perpetuate inequalities, depending on how they work. If ID documents are not universally available, on a non-discriminatory basis, those who do not have access to them may suffer human rights abuses. Data collection for purposes of providing legal ID documents may raise privacy or surveillance concerns, or perpetuate discrimination depending on the use of sensitive data related to race, ethnicity or religion. Any legal ID programme should therefore carefully consider intersecting human rights issues, which are discussed below. 1.2 Equality and Non-Discrimination The right to be free of discrimination is protected in several international human rights instruments, including in general terms in the primary human rights treaties and, in reference to particular forms of discrimination, such as based on sex or race, in more specific treaties.8 For example, Article 5 Inter-American Court of Human Rights, The Girls Yean and Bosico v. Dominican Republic, 8 September 2005, para. 179. Available at: https://www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/seriec_130_%20ing.pdf. 6 Human Rights Council, Resolution 28/13 on birth registration and the right of everyone to recognition everywhere as a person before the law, UN Doc. A/HRC/RES/28/13, 7 April 2015. Available at: undocs.org/A/HRC/RES/28/13. 7 Available at: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/peace-justice. 8 See, among others, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 2(1); International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Articles 2(1) and 26; International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial -2-