Toward a Caribbean Digital Rights Jurisprudence: A Proposed CCJ Framework for Digital Identity, Privacy, and Inclusion

Author’s Original Version / Preprint. This article argues that the Caribbean Court of Justice already has the doctrinal resources to review digital identity systems before a flagship technology case reaches it. Drawing on McEwan, Titan, and Bain, and using European Union, Indian, and Kenyan materials as functional comparators, it develops a six-part framework for Caribbean digital-rights adjudication: legality, legitimate aim, necessity and design justification, proportionality and safeguards, equality and non-exclusion, and accountability and remedies. The article’s contribution is methodological as well as doctrinal. It shows how a court can translate adjacent constitutional principles into a digital-rights framework while remaining attentive to legislation, regulators, administrative design, and technical architecture. It also positions that framework within debates about whether digital identity systems enable inclusion, intensify control, or do both at once. Digital identity is not inherently unlawful, but systems that become gateways to ordinary civic life require precise authorization, narrow tailoring, robust safeguards, and remedies capable of addressing structural constitutional harm.