Afghans who worked with Americans worried as US database could expose them to Taliban

The databases built by the US with the intention of government accountability could now become a potential tool for the Taliban to hunt down Afghans who worked with the previous regime.

Over two decades, the United States and its allies spent hundreds of millions of dollars building databases for the Afghan people. The nobly stated goal: Promote law and order and government accountability and modernise a war-ravaged land. But in the Taliban’s lightning seizure of power, most of that digital apparatus — including biometrics for verifying identities — apparently fell into Taliban hands. Built with few data-protection safeguards, it risks becoming the high-tech jackboots of a surveillance state. As the Taliban get their governing feet, there are worries it will be used for social control and to punish perceived foes.