On Jan. 30, 1933, the world would change forever as Adolf Hitler was named chancellor of Germany. On that infamous day, he forged ahead with a plan to identify and annihilate European Jewry. Hitler’s plan, however, could not have gone forward without help.

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The same holds true today. All master plans have cogs and gears that enable them to run like well-oiled machines. In order for Hitler’s plan to work, he had to trace, track, and identify Jews. The machine that helped him do it was the IBM punch-card sorting system. This technological tabulator, a precursor to the computer, could count, process, retrieve, and analyze the data of human populations, in record time. Many decades have passed since the Nazi Holocaust, but today’s tech companies — IBM, Microsoft, Google, and Apple, to name a few — still possess the gears of transformation when it comes to data and identity. What they do with this information, however, can truly change history for better or worse.

Recently, I read a book that will forever change the way I view identity and technology. Written by investigative journalist and New York Times bestselling author Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust documents the lucrative relationship between the multinational technology corporation IBM and Nazi Germany. The book’s contents are shocking and would likely impact anyone living in today’s technological age. In particular, the book sheds light on the dangers of using data to track and trace human populations and, more specifically, their identities. Since 2020, such reliance on data to analyze, profile, and diagnose has been alarming, but even more concerning is the push to create digital IDs or “passports” for everyone on the planet.

As Black describes in the book: “IBM’s technology was originally created for only one reason: to count people as they had never been counted before, with a magical ability to identify and quantify. Before long, IBM technology demonstrated it could do more than just count people or things. It could compute, that is, the technology could record data, process it, retrieve it, analyze it, and automatically answer pointed questions” (page 24).

The inventor of the IBM punch-card system was Herman Hollerith, and he envisioned a machine that would create a sort of “punched photograph.” Black explains:

“Hollerith’s idea was a card with standardized holes, each representing a different trait: gender, nationality, occupation and so forth. The card would then be fed into a ‘reader.’ By virtue of easily adjustable spring mechanisms and brief electrical brush contacts sensing for the holes, the cards could be ‘read’ as they raced through a mechanical feeder. The processed cards could then be sorted into stacks based on a specific series of punched holes. Millions of cards could be sorted and resorted. Any desired trait could be isolated–general or specific–by simply sorting or resorting for data-specific holes. The machines could render the portrait of an entire population–or pick out any group within that population. Indeed, one man could be identified from among millions if enough holes could be punched into a card and sorted enough times. Every punch card would become an informational storehouse limited only by the number of holes. It was nothing less than a 19^th century bar code for human beings” (page 25).

Herman Hollerith did not create the punch-card system for the purpose of profiling Jews, or any others that Hitler considered “undesirable.” Initially, it was used to revolutionize data from the U.S. Census, making a difficult and tedious task much more efficient. It wasn’t until years later, when Thomas J. Watson became CEO of IBM, that the scope and purpose of this tabulating tool would change. In fact, Watson developed a special connection with Nazi Germany that would “set the stage for a technologic and economic alliance with the Third Reich” (page 43).

Watson allowed IBM’s exclusive punch-card technology to be used as a “racial census” that would accelerate Hitler’s plans, particularly through its German subsidiary, Dehomag (Deutsche Hollerith-Maschinen Gesellschaft). IBM Germany used its own staff and equipment to supply the Third Reich with the means to identify, categorize, and process people who were Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, or deemed anti-social, or who were considered political/religious threats. Thousands of multi-machine sets were sent throughout Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe. Punch-card sorters were used in every major concentration camp, where the precise location of punched holes identified physical characteristics such as nationality, date of birth, marital status, number of children, or work skills. Transportation of prisoners by railcar from one camp to another could be logged and tracked as well. Concentration camp statistics, such as cause of death, were denoted by a hole-punch in a particular column: natural death was coded 3; execution, code 4; suicide, code 5; “special handling,” code 6 (extermination by gas chamber, hanging, or gunshot). Concentration camps had codes assigned as well: Auschwitz was 001, Buchenwald was 002, Dachau was 003.

IBM’s New York headquarters helped manage and oversee operations.

“Punch cards could only be designed, printed and purchased from one source: IBM. The machines were not sold, they were leased, and regularly maintained and upgraded by only one source: IBM. IBM subsidiaries trained the Nazi officers and their surrogates throughout Europe IBM” (page 9). Additionally, Black reveals that there were hundreds of pages of internal correspondence between the Nazi operations and IBM’s Watson, from 1933 to 1945.

Certainly, this history is disturbing and leaves one wondering about the parallels to our current world. The horrors of the Holocaust seem far away, but how can we learn from those dark times, during which technology became a twisted tool for eugenics-obsessed dictators, as well as a lucrative endeavor for colluding businesses?

This brings us to today. The idea of analyzing, sorting, tracking, tracing, and identifying is alive and well, but it has taken a new path known as “digital ID.” Going by many names, such as vaccine passport, smart health cards, global health certificate, or digital identity wallet, this system is far more advanced than a punch-card system. And in the wrong hands, it could be used as a “digital concentration camp” in which those who don’t comply are locked out of society.

At the recent B20 Summit, in November 2022, the health minister of Indonesia, Budi Gunadi Sadikin, called on the G2O member nations to institute a “global health certificate” in order to restrict a human’s right to “move around.” He said: “Let’s have a digital health certificate acknowledged by WHO — if you have been vaccinated or tested properly — then you can move around.” Interestingly enough, Sadikin used to work for IBM as an information technology officer at the Asia-Pacific headquarters in Tokyo, and also as a manager of systems integration. Additionally, he spoke at the 2022 World Economic Forum meeting (“Unlocking the Power of Digital Health“).

Sadikin elaborates: “Indonesia has achieved, G20 country has agreed, this digital certificate using WHO standard, and we will sub it into the next World Health Assembly in Geneva as the revision to international health regulation.” He concluded his summit speech by declaring: “Hopefully for the next pandemic, we can still see some movement of the people, some movement of the goods, and movement of the economy.” Of course, he means that only those with so-called digital passports or IDs should be afforded any such “movement.”

The G20 Summit leaders signed the Bali Leaders’ Declaration, which states that they agree to adopt vaccine passports to facilitate all international travel. As Liberty Counsel notes,: “G20 membership accounts for more than 66% of the world’s population and includes Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, India, Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, and the European Union.” Liberty Counsel further says that the declaration — signed by all the member countries — includes a section (23, page 8) dealing with the facilitation of “seamless international travel.” The declaration pushes the importance of shared technical standards and verification methods, and this includes vaccine passports. There is also the commitment of the G20 leaders to “support continued international dialogue and collaboration on the establishment of trusted global digital health networks that should capitalize and build on the success of the existing standard and digital COVID-19 certificates.”

Dr. Naomi Wolf, a best-selling author and CEO of the DailyClout, warns: “I cannot say this forcefully enough — this is literally the end of human liberty in the West if this plan unfolds as planned. ‘Vaccine passport’ sounds like a fine thing if you don’t understand what these platforms can do. I’m the CEO of a tech company, I understand what this platform does. It is not about the vaccine or the virus, it is about your data. What people need to understand is that any other functionality can be loaded onto that platform with no problem at all.”

When the COVID pandemic hit in 2020, world leaders and tech companies jumped quickly onto the digital ID bandwagon. In early 2021, Microsoft’s ID2020 launched the Good Health Pass Collaborative, which brought together corporate giants IBM and Mastercard. Their goal was to create a “blueprint for an interoperable ecosystem of digital health pass systems” that would allow travelers to quickly and easily prove their health status. Specifically, they stressed that “the purpose of health credentials is to securely prove that a person has received a vaccine or PCR test. The new alliance is particularly targeting travel to ensure credentials work cross-border, cross-industry and are frictionless.” Microsoft ID2020, IBM and Mastercard support the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal 16.9 which promises “an officially recognized identity for all … one that draws on recent advances in biometrics and innovative technologies.”

Today’s digital IDs require sophisticated mechanisms to operate. IBM designed their own health ID known as IBM Digital Health Pass, which is built on hybrid cloud and blockchain technology. IBM defines blockchain as “a shared, immutable ledger that facilitates the process of recording transactions and tracking assets in a business network. An asset can be tangible (a house, car, cash, land) or intangible (intellectual property, patents, copyrights, branding). Virtually anything of value can be tracked and traded on a blockchain network. … ” IBM also used blockchain and hybrid cloud in 2021, when it partnered with Moderna to improve supply-chain visibility and vaccine distribution, and to increase rates of vaccination.

When it comes to collaboration and digital identity, the numbers of companies involved are vast and varied, but another facet to be considered is how this could be connected to your financial standing and lifestyle. In Nazi Germany, if your punch card (ID) labeled you a Jew, your finances and valuables were confiscated and your ability to move around was removed. Historical documents show that businesses like IBM enabled this process by allowing their technology to be utilized.

Currently, there are at least nine financial institutions in the United States — including Citibank, Wells Fargo, Truist, and Mastercard — that have launched a pilot program working with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to test a digital dollar, also known as CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency). It is probable that if a national digital currency is instituted, it will eventually be connected to a digital ID. The dangers of this possibility are enormous, as this system can easily be hijacked by national and global entities that want to track and control data, money, and basic freedoms.

An Epoch Times article titled “Australia’s New Digital ID: One Step Closer to China” explains that the rollout of a digital ID system known as myGovID, could catapult citizens into a digital prison like the one used by the Chinese Communist Party. Currently, the Australian digital ID is “optional” — but mandatory for anyone starting a new business.

Recently, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation renewed its commitment to “sustainable development goals” and digital ID by investing $200 million for digital public infrastructure — which will include civil registry databases. The Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom says this: “The Gates Funding is also earmarked to support interoperable payment systems and data-sharing systems. In short, digital, trackable cash. This aligns with the Federal Reserve’s discussion of creating a central bank digital currency that would include your identity with every purchase, including medical care.” ID2020, which partnered with IBM and Mastercard to develop the Good Health Pass, is  supported by Gavi The Vaccine Alliance, which gets much of its funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and has a strong alliance with the WHO.  Additionally, the World Bank’s digital-identity platform, ID4D, has Gates Foundation support.

Many governments, foundations, and organizations that support digital IDs will claim that those can help the “marginalized” people of the world become “visible.” These interests tout the “cost-effectiveness,” the “convenience,” and the “security.” But what happens when your digital ID becomes a window into your carbon footprint, vaccine status, or religious and political views? How many holes will you then accumulate on your “punch card”? Are we simply trading a punch-card registry for an updated block-chain ledger? Holocaust survivor Vera Sharavsaid recently that if we do not learn from our history, we make that history irrelevant.

This subject cannot be taken lightly, and it demands much prayer. Our identity does not come from any government or global entity. Our identity comes from Jesus Christ — as Ephesians 1:1–14 boldly declares. Our minds, our bodies, and our lives belong to a Heavenly Authority that cannot be tracked or hole-punched by any human-made technology. Amen.

Lord Jesus, help us learn from our history, so we do not fall prey to schemes that could rob us of our God-given rights and freedoms.

For more information about IBM and its connection to the Holocaust, read Black’s IBM and the Holocaust, which is backed up by tens of thousands of documents. The author stresses: “Behind every text footnote is a file folder with all the hardcopy documentation needed to document every sentence in this book at a moment’s notice. Moreover, I assembled a team of hair-splitting, nitpicking, adversarial researchers and archivists to review each and every sentence, collectively ensuring that each fact and fragment of a fact was backed up with the necessary black and white documents” (page 14).

How can we effectively pray about digital IDs and the organizations and businesses that support them?

Angela Rodriguez is an author, blogger, and home-schooling mom who studies the historical and biblical connections between Israel and the U.S. You can visit her blogs at 67owls.com and 100trumpets.com. Her latest book, Psalm 91: Under the Wings of Jesus, was released in June 2021. Photo Credit: Canva.