Huduma Number: A carrot or a stick?

President Uhuru Kenyatta registering for Huduma Number. Courtesy: The Star

Anyone who’s reared rabbits, knows for a fact that there are not more than two ways around luring a bunny, one is with a fleshy carrot, and the other is by striking it with a stick, hard enough to make it comply.

Huduma number is either that carrot or that stick that that will force us into some controlled outcome for whoever runs the enterprise called Kenya.

President Uhuru Kenyatta’s jestful statement “kujitambulisha na shetani inaungania wapi?” and the ensuing “Kenya kuna ujinga mwingi” comment served to undervalue, if not to mock the religious fears around the registration process.

Opposition chief, Raila Odinga, had similar views as the president. Raila retorted at one public function that if he were the Judge handling the case filed against the roll-out of biometric identification, he would without hesitation make it compulsory.

The courts still maintain that the process must not be forced upon Kenyans. The process was therefore rolled out on a voluntary basis.  

Kenyans have expressed mixed reactions over the huduma number with a simple majority depending on interpretation from politicians.

It is somewhat strange, maybe borderline hypocritical of Kenyans to shun the huduma number system on account of biometric identification per se, while on the other hand indulging in all of its benefits; from mobile phone finger-print scanners to iris scans for iOS devices and facial recognition software.

I have not heard the dreaded KOT ‘telling’ off Facebook Inc. for using client data manipulatively:

Neither have I seen iPhone users in Kenya going ham on the Apple Company over a particular data clause they did not agree with. Instead they quickly scroll down the terms and conditions and check the box and click ACCEPT.

We are not to blame, at least not entirely. The government has failed us legally. Kenya has one of the most miserable data security laws on the planet – forget not the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Biometric Registration process. Courtesy: Strathmore University Center for Intellectual Property and Information Technology Law

Kenya needs to have in place legal safeguards when it comes to biometric data management. Sensitive data such as gender, height, race, ethnicity, eye colour, fingerprints, birth place/date, physical address all stored in a centralized database will be exploited as long as selfish individuals breathe air.

How much more are the authorities and law enforcement willing to behave themselves when they are already having a hard time policing highways, acting on intelligence, manning our borders, solving murders and disappearances, crime scene management among other things?

With the introduction of biometric data in the mix, can we, the people, be guaranteed privacy? What about transparency? How about efficiency?

It is not the first time Kenya is interacting with biometric technology, our past encounter with the Biometric Voter Registration system left little to be desired about it.

The results of the 2017 election were contested and overthrown by the Supreme Court despite the billions spent on servers that did not help us when the country needed transparency. – No value for money.

Huduma Namba card

Kenyans can only hope that 60% of the already allocated Ksh. 6 Billion will be put to good use; the other 40% will seep into the purchase of towels for if the registration crew need to ‘throw in the towel’.

It would not be surprising to find out months later that citizen’s data was outsourced to irresponsible companies which then traded our data for personal gain.

This scenario puts us in a precarious position because the data can then be used to discriminate based on religion, migration status and even to target minorities.

And because we are expected to submit our very identity, we cannot change whatever information we give. Our biometrics cannot change. The government will own such data and will use it at pleasure.

Since the government will have this kind of information on a single source, the possibilities to effect geo-location tracking, restrict access to places, video surveillance, increased chances of identity fraud cases due to inability to be reissued with a new set of fingerprints should there be an impostor, will render the whole country at risk.

Video surveillance based on facial recognition.

The risk is so big, it threatens our very own rights and freedoms as enshrined in the constitution. Article 31 guarantees the right to privacy.

The government cannot be trusted to protect whistle-blowers or journalists who intend to uncover mega corruption against the same government that has information on wherever they are and whatever they are doing at any time.