A Postcolonial Card Cartel: How European Companies Sold Biometric Voting in Africa

Biometrics companies see Africa as the ‘ultimate frontier’ — a relatively untapped market, yet to be fully captured. Although there is now a substantial critical literature on identification technologies in Africa and the Global South, little attention has been paid to one set of key actors, namely, the companies that sell the technologies. To explore this issue, the author uses a case study involving the biometric identification of voters. Building on the work of David Lyon, the article introduces the notion of the postcolonial card cartel and analyses how this cartel came to be. First, the analytical framework brings vendors, who are central but often neglected actors, back into the study of identification technologies. Second, it reflects on the postcolonial dimension of the market. It explains the dominance of European companies, with a particular focus on French companies in the former French Empire, and analyses how African actors navigate these unequal global power structures. The article concludes that while anti-imperialist mobilizations have recently politicized the role of foreign companies, African states have become increasingly dependent on corporate actors for both election management and citizen identification.