The Geopolitical Shaping of Digital ID in Asia: Ten Years of Digital Asia

This article draws attention to a missing dimension in the analysis of digital ID: its geopolitical shaping. After a brief reflection on theory in digital Asia, it presents the most common approach to digital ID as involving judgments about its positive and negative impacts and potential regulatory fixes. While recognizing the utility of this approach, the article presents a complementary framing of digital ID systems focused not on their effects, but on the influences that shape them. It argues that in many Asian countries in the global South, digital ID systems can be influenced by a combination of: technological struggle between the US and China; a desire to open new markets for digital service companies; and the development potential of economic and financial inclusion. After revealing the intellectual roots of the ‘geopolitical shaping’ frame in three adjacent literatures, it concludes by pointing the way to new avenues of empirical enquiry.