Because of the lack of any data-protection affect assessments completed on it, Kenya won’t be launching a digital identification system this yr in any case.
Kenya’s Excessive Courtroom paused the rollout of the “Maisha Namba” system, which was because of embody digital ID playing cards, distinctive private identifiers, and a nationwide inhabitants register, in keeping with media reviews. Native privateness and human rights teams mentioned that the gathering of biometric and biographical knowledge to underpin the system was obtained unlawfully, that there was no authorized basis for the digital id system, and that the fast rollout of the of Maisha Namba dismissed data-security concerns.
Particularly, lobbyists on the Katiba Institute mentioned Maisha Namba “threatens to violate the fitting to privateness and the fitting to public participation of hundreds of thousands of Kenyans.”
The system is about to be reviewed once more by the Excessive Courtroom in February.
Maisha Namba follows one other proposed digital ID program, Huduma Namba, which acquired comparable criticisms over knowledge privateness and was finally dropped.
