Interior CS Fred Matiang’i
The government of Kenya (GoK) has moved to make National Integrated Identity Management System (NIIMS) alias Huduma Namba compulsory.
Through the Huduma Namba Bill 2019, that has already been published by the Interior Ministry, GoK warns that you will not be able to do a number of very important daily life things without Huduma Namba.
The public now has 14 days from Thursday next week to have their input in the Huduma Namba Bill; from there it will move to the National Assembly and, if approved to the President for assent, the Huduma Namba will become mandatory for all Kenyans.
Huduma Namba intends to make all the other identification documents obsolete because it will cover things like filling of tax, registration of birth, acquisition of passports, driving licenses, registration of mobile phone numbers and in registration as a voter.
Here is the full list Fears of misuse of data Experts have decried the lack of data protection laws to protect Kenyans from the potential misuse of their data. Competing bills on data protection laws sat at the senate and national assembly floors, until recently, when the ICT ministry abandoned the Bill developed by the Senate and opted to wait for one coming from the National Assembly.
This is appalling and smells fishy.
There seems to be someone somewhere pulling the strings so that they can delay the Bills, get Huduma Registration done first and fast, so that when the Data Protection Law comes to play, they'll already have the data.
The ICT ministry says that the move to wait for the other Bill coming from Parliament was informed by advice from the Attorney General Kariuki's office.
Early last month, it was reported that GoK's websites including Integrated Financial Management Systems (IFMIS) was hacked; GoK downplayed this event.
How safe is Huduma Namba data?
Let's not forget that data is the new goldmine and that the man that now sits atop the ICT Ministry CS Mucheru was once the head of a company that loves data.
Google unofficial vision is to have data about everything and everyone.
Well, your guess is as good as mine.
Mastercard, the partners in this 'waste-of-resources' registration of Kenyans are the western company at play.
The most a company like Mastercard which runs as a Foundation does is to collect data everywhere, and there's no escaping the dragnet because, being a foundation, it targets even the lowly and remotest of society through agricultural Programmes designed for rural Africa.
In this data race, this rat race, this disgrace to the human race (would've been better with another government, not Jubilee in power), it seems there's no escape.
But we can resist. Because, data without data protection laws is tantamount to attack on the person.
Your data can be used to manipulate you.
Take the phone and call your member of parliament. Ask them to join in in refusing data collection without data protection laws.