voter biometrics in Zimbabwe (China link)

from Global voices:

In previous elections, citizens could visit any polling station and vote just by showing their conventional ID cards, which contained their name, ID number, date and place of birth and date of issue. After voting, one's finger would be smeared with indelible ink to avoid double voting. Now, citizens suddenly had to submit their photos, fingerprints, national identity numbers and home addresses into one integrated and digitized system. If they did not do this, they were told, they might be barred from voting. This increased public fears of monitoring and intimidation, already a common theme for elections in Zimbabwe. The system was touted both by ruling party and opposition voices as a strong guard against “ghost” voters and other types of election fraud.

But its underlying technology was not built with these issues in mind. Nor was it built in Zimbabwe. China’s ‘AI foray’ into southern Africa

The government of Zimbabwe signed a strategic partnership with CloudWalk Technology, a Chinese company that has become a leader in the field of facial recognition, in March 2018. The objective of the partnership was to commence a large-scale facial recognition program in Zimbabwe, which government officials said would be used to preserve “law and order,” and then expanded to other public sector programs.

oh, by the way, the UKGuardian calls the famine "man made". Duh.