Kenya’s National Population and Housing Census will go beyond the usual household count and ask children as young as three whether they own a mobile phone, according to a legal notice issued by Treasury CS Henry Rotich.
It said enumerators would also ask younger respondents and other family members if they know how to use the internet, and whether they can operate a computer, laptop or tablet.
For those aged 15 and above, the state planned to find out whether they were familiar with e-commerce. The questions were part of the statistics the government said it would collect during the census exercise.
The count was scheduled to begin at midnight on 24 August and run for one week. Other topics listed for the census included ethnicity, orphanhood status, albinism, school attendance and education attainment.
The ethnic data was expected to become politically sensitive ahead of the 2022 General Election, while the census figures were also to be used by the IEBC in boundary delimitation.
