Huduma law will protect Kenyans against invasion of their privacy

The National Assembly has been hosting public petitions around the Huduma Bill No.57 of 2021 that seeks to provide a primary law on civil registration and legal identity.

The bill proposes to overhaul the civil registration and identity management ecosystem, promote efficient delivery of public services and provide the legal framework for the Huduma Namba.

The fault lines are evident in the unfolding debate around the bill, which seeks to establish the National Integrated Identity Management System (Nims). At the sittings of the National Administration and Security Committee chaired by Limuru MP Peter Mwathi, three issues central to the divide have been clear: Privacy of integral data, the legality of the process and encroachment of responsibilities traditional to existing institutions such as the Immigration department.

But there have been critical government interventions to address the concerns. Its establishment of the Office of the Data Commissioner, and recruitment of a substantive office holder, addresses the legal jitters about the security and privacy of Huduma Namba data. It has also allayed fears that the new system will do away with the Immigration Department. Rather, Immigration officers will discharge the same responsibilities under a different management structure.

Huduma Bill

Huduma Namba registration began in 2019 but ran into headwinds due to the absence of a comprehensive regulatory legal framework. This is what the Huduma Bill seeks to cure through provisions for inclusivity, especially as minority communities claim the new system might deny them citizenship.

Critics have also alleged lack of public participation. But that, too, has been addressed by several stakeholder engagements. The National Assembly invited petitions and several open forums to discuss the sticky issues.

The Huduma card will, essentially, collapse the multiple identity documents into a master ID document, effectively doing away with tedious and separate registration processes for government and public-funded services.

The bill also stipulates the contraventions and attendant penalties that provide adequate safeguards from infringement on personal data. An unauthorised access and/or interference with the process will attract punitive fines and penalties also anchored in the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act and the Data Protection Act 2019.

By the time the courts stopped the processing of Huduma Namba last October, more than 11.5 million cards had been printed and distributed, with millions of them collected. Through Kenyan missions, 96,000 Kenyans in the Diaspora were also registered. However, the Court of Appeal, in its ruling on March 4, noted that the project had complied with the Data Protection Act in respect to data protection impact assessment and can continue its rollout. The government says it is awaiting the passage of a bill for the legal foundation and the greenlight to proceed. Meanwhile, the cleaning of data is also ongoing.

For minors, their Huduma Namba will be attached to their parents’ and guardians’ through a family tree linkage, thus providing a complete ecosystem for legal identity.

Identify a citizen

Huduma Namba benefits outweigh its downside. An efficient master card that suffices to identify a citizen across the board is, after all, a global ideal. The US social security number is an example. The European Union, a trailblazer in digitisation of public services, has also implemented a similar identification system. Ghana is also a good Africa example while South Africa, Morocco and Rwanda are developing a similar system.

It would be imprudent to freeze Huduma Namba just because of its critics. That is not to downplay genuine concerns raised. Indeed, their buy-in is critical to the success of the envisaged second phase that is expected to capture around 12 million Kenyans.

Huduma Namba would put Kenya among the leading African countries in digital Identification (ID) and make it compliant with the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goal Sub-article 16.9, on legal identity for all.

Mr Rotich is a political analyst from Lumiere World Organisation.