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       U.S. Army Pfc. Mark Domingo, left, takes an Afghan man's fingerprints in Afghanistan's Khowst Province on Nov. 5, 2012, as part of the military's effort to gather biometric data on the residents.

       Christopher Bonebrake/The Associated Press

       In Kabul, people are hurriedly deleting files from their computers. In New York, a rights group has started posting Pashto-language tips online about how to delete one’s digital history. In Ottawa, government officials are scrubbing photos of identifiable Afghans from online publications.

       All this is being done as Afghans reckon with a data nightmare realized. Now that the Taliban have overtaken Afghanistan, they could gain access to vast pools of personal data that did not exist when the extremist group last ruled 20 years ago. Afghans who worked with foreign powers during the decades when Western militaries held sway in the country could be identified. This could expose them to Taliban reprisals.

       Already there are fears of Taliban forces stalking people’s social media accounts. And there have been reports of the group intercepting military-grade biometric equipment as spoils of war.

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       Thousands of Afghans scramble to delete digital histories, evade biometrics

       According to a confidential threat assessment sent to United Nations agencies and reported on by Reuters, the Taliban are conducting house-to-house searches for Afghans who cooperated with foreign countries. “Particularly at risk are individuals in central positions in military, police and investigative units,” the assessment said.

       And The Intercept has quoted unnamed military sources as saying that the Taliban have seized what are known as Hand-held Interagency Identity Detection Equipment (HIIDE) devices – portable scanners that collect eye, fingerprint, photographic and biographical data. They were used by American, Canadian and Afghan soldiers.

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       An employee scans the eyes of a woman for biometric data needed to apply for a passport, at the passport office in Kabul, Afghanistan, on June 30, 2021.

       Rahmat Gul/The Associated Press

       It’s not clear how much data Taliban security forces could manage to scrape off of these systems. The Pentagon is not commenting on the reported seizures, nor is the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), which ended a 12-year mission in Afghanistan in 2014.

       “We can’t provide details for operational and security reasons,” said Jessica Lamirande, a spokesperson for the Department of National Defence.

       The Canadian military is taking at least one step to protect the identities of Afghans: It is now removing their images from its older online publications. “We are reviewing our public-facing websites and social-media platforms to ensure imagery does not pose a risk to Afghan Nationals who supported CAF operations,” Ms. Lamirande said. “This is in line with some of our NATO partners.”

       The U.S. State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development also said this week that they are deleting images of Afghans from the internet.

       Starting in the early 2000s, U.S.-led coalition soldiers used HIIDE devices and similar equipment to scan fingerprints and retinas of Afghans who had been identified as potential insurgents. Later, the devices were also used to scan the features of police and soldiers, in bids to screen out rogue elements from Afghan security forces.

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       Now these same security forces could find themselves at risk if the databases that contain their information are compromised, said Welton Chang, chief technology officer for Human

       First, a New York–based non-profit.

       Earlier this week, Human Rights First published online pamphlets in Dari and Pashto that tutor Afghans on how to beat surveillance. In addition to a guide on deleting digital histories, the group is also offering a tip sheet on evading misuse of biometric data with tactics like obscuring or distorting facial features or wearing coloured contact lenses. (A biometric is a measurement of a physical trait that can be used to identify an individual.)

       Mr. Chang knows this world well. Fifteen years ago, when he was serving as a U.S. Army intelligence officer in Iraq, he participated in patrols that rounded up groups of people after insurgent attacks.

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       An election official scans a voter's eye with a biometric device at a polling station during a parliamentary election in Kabul on Oct. 20, 2018.

       MOHAMMAD ISMAIL/Reuters

       The hope among soldiers at the time, he said, was that by performing biometric scans of dozens of people it would be possible to figure out if a face in the crowd had been spotted at other skirmishes or attacks.

       “I don’t think those are very good, in hindsight, rationales for collecting biometrics,” Mr. Chang said. “Especially in the context of the knowledge that we have now.”

       Through the years, he said, the military coalition in Afghanistan built up biometric databases of people who worked as cooks, interpreters and cleaners on army bases. “The Afghan government itself collected biometrics from adults for their most recent elections,” Mr. Chang said.

       The potential for biometric backfires was predicted long ago. In 2012, Queen’s University lecturer and federal diplomat Alison Mitchell asked in an academic essay whether the Canadian Forces had thought deeply enough about the HIIDE scanners they were using in Afghanistan.

       A “serious risk associated with the creation of biometric databases is that the information contained in them may be misused or fall into wrong hands,” Ms. Mitchell warned at the time.

       She pointed out that a state’s data holdings can become powerful tools of repression amid anarchy. During the 1990s Rwandan genocide, feuding factions used national identity cards – which listed ethnic identity – to determine who to kill.

       The interception of modern biometric databases could aid forces in other conflicts with similar genocidal intent, she wrote. “The risk may be particularly worrying in places experiencing sectarian or ethnic violence, such as Iraq or Afghanistan.” (Contacted this week by The Globe and Mail, Ms. Mitchell, who still works for Global Affairs Canada, said she has not been cleared to speak publicly on this issue.)

       Leah West, a national-security professor at Carleton University who is researching the legalities of biometric technologies, said that militaries always try to gather data about local populations under their control, because soldiers need advantages that can end a war.

       The problem is that conflicts can devolve into protracted police-state missions. That installs soldiers as occupying forces who endlessly gather data about local populations, as rights to privacy are suspended indefinitely.

       “I think what we need to see is an evolution of our understanding,” said Prof. West.

       In future conflicts, she said, soldiers will need to start asking themselves some key questions before they start amassing data: ”How are we collecting and safeguarding this information? Who has access and who has control? On what basis are we collecting this or disclosing this?”

       Afghan women hold placards in protest for their rights in the streets of Kabul on Friday, a few days after the Taliban seized the capital on Sunday and recently began to discuss the forming of a new government. Reuters

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