This archive report was first published on 1 October 2019.
Published on October 1, 2019, the Huduma Namba registration exercise was touted as a crucial step towards national planning and data integrity by State officials led by Cabinet secretaries Joe Mucheru and Fred Matiang'i.
However, an ongoing case challenging the constitutionality of the National Integrated Identity Management System (NIIMS) has revealed that the government already had the data it sought to collect from Kenyans.
According to Bryan Omwenga, an information technology expert testifying on behalf of the government, personal information including emails, mobile numbers, profession, and asset ownership was already recorded in manual form and existed before the exercise.
Mr. Omwenga's testimony contradicts claims made by former immigration boss Gordon Kihalangwa, who had integrated the data of over 20 million Kenyans.
Experts have also raised concerns about the centralization of Kenyans' personal data, citing it as a threat to national security and inviting cybercriminals and hackers to attempt to access valuable data sets on citizens.
The government has so far failed to prove the necessity of spending Sh6 billion on a fresh registration process without enacting the data protection law as advised by experts in the public and private sector.
