Co-authored with Cynthia Conti-Cook and published by the Surveillance Resistance Lab, this report examines the technologies, institutions, and incentives driving digital ID expansion and outlines urgent demands needed to protect human dignity.
In June 2026, Cynthia Conti-Cook and I published Digital ID or Democracy? An Advocate’s Introduction to the Tech, Politics, and Urgent Demands Needed to Protect Human Dignity for the Surveillance Resistance Lab, a project of the Collaborative Research Center for Resilient Communities. The report brings together several years of writing, organizing, and policy work on digital ID systems, including previous publications, state-level advocacy efforts, and companion resources that track the expansion of digital IDs across the United States.
Specifically, the report examines: (1) what digital ID systems are and how technologies such as mobile driver's licenses, facial recognition, age verification systems, and identity verification platforms increasingly operate as a shared identity infrastructure; (2) a power mapping of the governments, corporations, and advocates shaping digital ID systems today; (3) why advocates should act now as these systems expand faster than democratic oversight and create new risks of surveillance, exclusion, and social control; and (4) practical opportunities for advocates, policymakers, and communities to intervene.
Read the report online at the Collaborative Research Center for Resilience or download the PDF below.