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In the wake of the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul and the ouster of the Afghan national government in August 2021, alarming reports indicated that the insurgents had potentially accessed biometric data collected by the U.S. to track Afghans, including people who worked for U.S. and coalition forces.
(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)
The potential failure of the US military to protect information that can identify Afghan citizens raises questions about whether and how biometric data should be collected in war zones.
In the US, biometrics are already used for urban geofencing. In Afghanistan, they may be used to find and persecute people.