Ten human rights lobby groups led by the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) on Thursday called on the government to halt the implementation process of Unique Personal Identifiers dubbed Maisha Namba citing a lack of public participation by the State.
In a statement directed to Immigration and Citizen Services Principal Secretary, Julius Bitok, the organisations called on the state to shelve the rollout to allow it to enact proper legislation, conduct public participation, and institute data protection measures before the rollout can be initiated.
Specifically, the lobby groups warned that the 'opaque process', lack of public engagement, and legal safeguards would wreak havoc on how Kenyans across the country can access nationality documents.
“We urged the government to take immediate action to ensure the enactment of proper legislation, meaningful public participation, access to critical documentation (birth certificates and ID cards) for all Kenyans, and adequate data protection measures and adherence to the law in the process aimed at creating a digital identity system in Kenya.” read part of the statement.
According to the lobby groups, the upcoming rollout of the Maisha Number is not authentic because of the way it has been planned and is likely to fail like Huduma Namba.
“We are at a critical moment. A move towards digital IDs is not a minor change but one that significantly changes how legal identification is administered in our country. As such, we need to get it right and improve access to nationality, data protection and individual privacy rather than erode it,” the lobby groups said in the statement.
The groups further expressed fears that marginalised communities might be locked out from national identity services and the possibility of Kenyans' data being harvested by the state.
Consequently, the ten human rights lobbies want the government to abolish ID vetting for all Kenyans.
They also want the government to implement affirmative action measures to issue documents to all persons who have been excluded or been unable to obtain the same due to the historical existence of vetting processes.
In the same vein, the human rights lobbies also want the government to ensure all Kenyans have access to national identity documents before moving forward with digitisation.
The lobby groups also want the government to involve civil society and members of the public, including minorities and marginalized communities in consultative meetings ahead of the rollout.
Conclusively, the lobbies also want the government to allow for a transition period prior to any roll-out to ensure time to implement the proposed changes.
The government announced that it has set aside close to Ksh 1 billion to aid in the implementation of the Maisha number program, the digital identifiers are set to replace the traditional Identity Cards.
The official launch of the Maisha Namba initiative is scheduled for September 29, with President William Ruto expected to preside over the event.
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