The Power of Non-Existence: When States Decide Who Is a Citizen

Translated by: Martina Marino

There are borders that do not appear on maps. They do not divide territories, require armies or involve checkpoints. They run through people's lives by means of an administrative act: the recognition of their existence. Those who possess legal identity can prove who they are. Those who lack it risk discovering that being born in a State does not necessarily mean belonging to it. Citizenship, before it is a matter of sentiment, is a legal relationship. And every legal relationship presupposes someone willing to recognise it.

According to the World Bank's 2025 Identification for Development (ID4D) programme data, approximately 800 million people do not have an official identity document. At least 2.8 billion lack access to a State-recognised digital identity that allows them to carry out online transactions. These are different figures and should not be added together: the latter concerns the ability to identify oneself digitally, not necessarily the absence of traditional documents. Nevertheless, both reveal the same divide: the expansion of administrative capabilities is progressing at unequal rates.

The issue begins at birth. UNICEF's report The Right Start in Life, published in December 2024, estimates that 150 million children under the age of five have not been registered. Another 55 million have been registered but do not possess a certificate proving it. This means that more than 200 million children lack this fundamental document. The global birth registration rate rose from 75% in 2019 to 77% in 2024. This is genuine progress, but not enough to eliminate geographical disparities.

In sub-Saharan Africa, only 51% of children under the age of five are registered. This amounts to approximately 90 million children whose births have not been registered. Regional differences are equally telling: coverage reaches 88% in Southern Africa, while it stands at just 41% in Eastern and Central Africa. There is therefore no single, generic African problem. Rather, there are public institutions with different resources, priorities and capabilities. The geography of identity follows the geography of infrastructure, security and the State's actual presence.

Bureaucracy is often seen as a burden. Yet for those living far from public offices, its absence can be more burdensome than its presence. Registering a birth requires healthcare facilities, staff, transport links, accessible procedures and administrative continuity. Distance, indirect costs and discrimination can make a formally guaranteed right impossible to access. This does not automatically mean being unable to attend school or receive healthcare, but it does create additional obstacles to proving one's age, family relationships, residence and entitlement to benefits.

This is where a crucial distinction emerges. Lacking a birth certificate does not mean being stateless. Statelessness refers to people who are not considered nationals by any State under the operation of its laws. The absence of birth registration can increase the risk of statelessness, but does not necessarily lead to it. Confusing the two conditions obscures distinct legal mechanisms: on the one hand, proof of identity; on the other, recognition of nationality. Both, however, demonstrate how much individual protection depends on institutions.

According to UNHCR, at least 4.5 million stateless people were recorded worldwide at the end of 2025. This figure is a documented minimum, not an exhaustive count: many countries do not provide complete data. Among the populations most severely affected are the Rohingya, who are concentrated mainly in Myanmar and Bangladesh and accounted for approximately 1.8 million of the recorded stateless people. Their experience shows that exclusion does not arise solely from weak administrative systems. It can also be produced by citizenship laws and political decisions.

Building an efficient civil registry is therefore not enough. We must ask who is allowed to be included, under what conditions and with what opportunities for appeal. A State may collect extensive information about its population while continuing to deny certain groups full legal recognition. Technology makes registration and verification faster; it does not, in itself, determine which criteria are fair. A digitised system can reduce fraud and errors, but it can also reinforce existing exclusions when inaccurate data or discriminatory requirements become difficult to challenge.

The stakes extend beyond individual protection. An administration unable to identify its population struggles to plan schools, vaccination programmes, infrastructure and social transfers. Without reliable registration, public statistics also become less representative. For States, making residents visible means strengthening fiscal capacity, planning and legitimacy. For citizens, it means being able to demand services and accountability. The same register that enables the State to govern should also allow society to hold it accountable for its decisions.

International law has long recognised this central role. Article 6 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights establishes everyone's right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law. Through Sustainable Development Goal 16.9, the United Nations' 2030 Agenda aims to provide legal identity for all, including birth registration. The 2030 deadline is approaching, yet the gap between commitment and implementation remains wide. Enshrining a right in international conventions does not mean making it accessible in remote villages, refugee camps or conflict-affected regions.

There are, however, signs of progress that make fatalism unwarranted. According to UNICEF, child registration in West Africa has reached 63%, following improvements achieved over the past fifteen years. Integrating registration into healthcare services, eliminating fees and bringing registration offices closer to communities can deliver results. But sustainability requires public funding, trained officials and procedures for correcting errors. Identity must not depend exclusively on an electronic platform, nor become a privilege reserved for those with internet access, digital skills and pre-existing documents.

For this reason, the problem cannot be solved by setting paper records against technology. The real choice is between institutions capable of including people and institutions that classify them without protecting them. The first requirement is to ensure that registration is accessible and free of charge; the second, to allow corrections and independent appeals; the third, to prevent personal information from being used to discriminate. Digital identity can be a valuable tool, provided it does not become the only gateway to rights that belong to individuals even before they appear in a database.

A further risk concerns the distribution of power between public administrations and technology companies. When identification becomes essential to receiving benefits, opening a bank account or accessing a service, errors do not remain confined to databases: they have material consequences. An incorrect personal record can lead to repeated exclusion across different systems. Preventing this requires public oversight, privacy safeguards and alternative means of identification. Modernising procedures should not restrict people's ability to be recognised, but rather expand it in practical terms, especially for those living on the margins of institutions.

The paradox of our time is this: while States debate artificial intelligence, surveillance and border control, millions of people still lack the basic means to prove their existence in the eyes of public administration. They are not non-existent people. They are people whom institutions see only partially, inaccurately or selectively. And the distance between being alive and being recognised reveals an essential dimension of contemporary power: the power to determine who belongs to the political community and who remains standing at its door.

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