This archive report was first published on 8 November 2019.
On November 8, 2019, President Uhuru Kenyatta signed the Data Protection Bill 2019 into law, marking a significant milestone in Kenya's data protection journey.
The new law establishes the office of the Data Commissioner and sets out the requirements for the protection of personal data processed by both public and private entities.
During a separate meeting with visiting executives of Amazon Web Services (AWS), President Kenyatta welcomed the establishment of an edge location in Nairobi, which will enable businesses and web application developers to distribute data housed in Kenya to thousands of users with low latency and high data transfer speeds.
AWS Vice President Teresa Carlson applauded Kenya for the passage of the new data law and informed the President of Amazon's plans to set up an edge location in Nairobi.
Ms. Carlson said the new data law paves the way for the organization's investment, which will enable Nairobi to join other global cities as an edge location.
President Kenyatta assured that Kenya has the requisite infrastructure and educated young population that will benefit from the business opportunities and jobs that will be created.
"I am delighted to welcome AWS's investment in Kenya. The launch of Amazon CloudFront will put us in the forefront of accelerated innovation – enabling startups, enterprises and our government agencies to focus on building the best user experience," the President said.
