The Social Card registry: Entrenching Poverty and Discrimination

As one of the largest providers of social protection loans globally, the World Bank has played a crucial role in advocating for greater automation in social protection systems, particularly in low and middle-income countries. In Serbia, the World Bank funded the Social Card Registry as it considered its development as “essential to identify beneficiaries quickly during crises and expand coverage of social assistance support”. Amnesty International’s research, however, highlights that introducing the Social Card registry without addressing existing barriers to accessing social assistance was bound to create new challenges and exacerbate existing problems for individuals already facing discrimination. At face value, the Social Card Law and the Social Card registry may be presented as neutral technical solutions. However, in practice, they cannot be isolated from the social and historical contexts into which they are introduced. Amnesty International's research found this to be a case in which flawed technology was introduced in a context where marginalized groups were already experiencing discrimination.