US-built databases a potential tool of Taliban repression

BOSTON (AP) — Over 2 decades, the United States and its allies spent hundreds of millions of dollars gathering databases for the Afghan people. The nobly stated extremity was to beforehand instrumentality and bid and authorities accountability, and to modernize a war-ravaged land.  But successful the Taliban’s lightning seizure of power, astir of that integer apparatus fell into the hands of an unreliable ruler. Built with fewer data-protection safeguards, that strategy present risks becoming a high-tech instrumentality of a surveillance state. As the Taliban get their governing feet, galore Afghans interest the databases, including biometrics for tracking individuals, volition beryllium wielded to enforce societal power and punish perceived foes.