With the Taliban
going door-to-door to hunt for “collaborators” in Afghanistan, the civilian Afghan
government’s giant stores of biometric data may put many in danger, according
to a BBC report. Both the US military and the erstwhile Afghan government have collected
vast swathes of biometric data, primarily fingerprints, all across Afghanistan.

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The US military used
HIIDE (Handheld Interagency Identity Detection Equipment) in an attempt to beef
up security in Afghanistan, including to identify bombmakers and other
potential terrorists. The US military once aspired to obtain biometric data of
80% of the Afghan population, nearly 25 million people. However, in reality, it
could obtain much less.

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Even so, according
to news site the Intercept, some HIIDE data has fallen into the hands of the
Taliban. A Kabul resident told Reuters that the Taliban are going door-to-door
with “biometric machine”. An Afghan official said that the biometric infrastructure
is now in Taliban’s hands, according to NewScientist.

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The e-Tazkira
identity card for which Afghan government’s National Statistics and Information
Authority processed over six million applications contains fingerprints, iris
scans and a photograph. Face recognition technology was used to check voter
registration in Afghanistan’s 2019 elections. The country even had plans to
collect biometric data from students in madrassas.

In 2016, Afghan
media channels had reported that the Taliban had used biometric data to
identify bus passengers who were security services personnel in a violent ambush
that claimed 12 lives. Therefore, the vast amounts of data now in Taliban’s
hands could enable the militant organization with deep links to terror and a
history of torture target civilians, especially those who were associated with the
civilian administration or the US forces in any capacity.

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The only saving
grace is that much of the data collected by the US military is not stored in
Afghanistan and wasn’t shared in bulk with Afghan partners. Data on the HIIDE
devices are stored in Pentagon’s Automated Biometrics Identification System.
However, the data stored by the Afghan government has the potential to land
many civilians in trouble with the Taliban.