Introduction1 This paper evaluates human rights issues that are relevant for a biometrics-based digital ID system that Myanmar might adopt. Digital ID systems are systems which assign individuals a single “digital ID” which is used to authenticate an individual’s identity and generally stored in a central database.2 They range from so-called soft digital IDs, such as a password used to access a social media account, to more secure sorts of IDs, which are often based on immutable and unique biometric data such as fingerprints or iris scans. While these more secure biometric digital IDs do provide important benefits, such as the inability to crack into them, unlike digital passwords, they also raise a number of complex human rights issues. This is due to issues associated with having a central database of personal data, the potential for abuse of any large-scale data collection exercise and the fact that digital IDs are often used as a mandatory system for accessing certain social services. This paper comprises four parts. The first part reviews relevant human rights standards. The second presents the legal framework in Myanmar and reviews what we know about current efforts by the government to implement a national digital ID system there. The third part presents a comparative assessment of digital ID systems in India, Kenya and Jamaica, the latter two being countries where courts have found the local digital ID schemes to be unconstitutional. Finally this paper offers recommendations for Myanmar. 1. International Human Rights Standards Digital ID systems, depending on what information they are based on and how they are used, have the potential to impact a wide range of everyday activities and also human rights. This section of the paper looks at four sets of human rights which are engaged here, namely the right to recognition as a person before the law, the right to equality and non-discrimination, the right to privacy, and social and economic rights. 1.1 The Right to Recognition as a Person Before the Law Everyone has the right to be recognised everywhere as a person before the law, as guaranteed in Article 6 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)3 and Article 16 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).4 This right to status as a legal person 1 This Brief was authored by Laura Notess, Legal Officer, CLD, with research support from Hanna Rioseco, Legal Intern, CLD. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported Licence. You are free to copy, distribute and display this work and to make derivative works, provided you give credit to Centre for Law and Democracy, do not use this work for commercial purposes and distribute any works derived from this publication under a licence identical to this one. To view a copy of this licence, visit: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/. 2 See Access Now, National Digital Identity Programmes: What’s Next?, May 2018, p. 5. Available at: https://www.accessnow.org/cms/assets/uploads/2018/06/Digital-Identity-Paper-2018-05.pdf. 3 UN General Assembly Resolution 217A (III), 10 December 1948. 4 UN General Assembly Resolution 2200A (XXI), 16 December 1966, in force 23 March 1976.