Rutonomics is fusing liberties and security into digital economy

Youth during anti Finance Bill 2024 demonstrations along City Hall Way, Nairobi, on June 24, 2024. [File, Standard]

I heard on the grapevine that top telcos in this country have been elevated to fully-fledged police stations, complete with Officers Commanding Police Divisions (OCPD) deployed to every sub-county headquarters.

You will never see the police officers on patrol, because they literally let their fingers do the walking, by scanning through our phones’ data. The only time they venture out will be to abduct those they have been trailing. And since they use smart, unmarked vehicles, complaints about jalopies that stall for lack of fuel will be a thing of the past.

So efficient is the new system, it’s been hailed as a first in sub-Saharan Africa because the police-citizen ratio is well above the UN-sanctioned ratio of a policeman for every 800 citizens.

Their main work is to manage data from the citizens and monitor their peculiar habits that could have a bearing on national security. Conversely, they monitor phone activity as a pre-emptive measure against social strife.

Under this new dispensation, “security” is defined as anything that could jeopardise public peace at domestic, regional or national level. To elaborate on the latter, think of activities that could jeopardise public peace by having protesters picket in the streets, stalling the free flow of traffic.

In such circumstances, police will be at liberty to use surveillance devices to locate troublemakers and make pre-emptive strikes through abductions, as happened to my friend Bonnie Mwangi last weekend.

Such suspects may be driven around blindfolded (these officers wear masks as well) and deposit suspects in police stations dizzy and disoriented, before releasing them without charge. The strategy is to break them down, one arrest at a time.

The razor-sharp precision of those tracking devices was demonstrated in the abduction of the Kitengela Three, who were traced and abducted aboard matatus. They were held incommunicado for a month, and it appears they were broken into pieces.

The other realm of “security” will be scrutinising curious behaviour patterns. If, for instance, one is in the habit of sending small sums of money via M-Pesa to individuals who are not listed as dependents, and the said individuals turn out to be female guards, waitresses and others who fall under the category of “social workers,” the State will be at liberty to investigate if there are occasions when those phone handsets are in the same location to signal the coming together of those individuals.

There is a solid legal reason for this action; the government is trying to contain the rising cases of femicide which seem to be underlined by interactions between married and unmarried folks of opposite genders.

But the main area of surveillance will come via M-Pesa, apparently because Kenyans can hardly do anything without the App, from paying bus fares to buying milk at the local kiosk. I understand data from such transactions will come in so handy as businesses can be screened remotely to ensure full duties are paid for the goods on sale, as documented via e-Tims, another surveillance tool imposed by the government.

It is envisioned that with advances in technology, public health surveillance will be possible using phones, which can report when one is using the phone while driving, or using the phone while discharging other mundane tasks like moving bowels.

As for those who might opt to stay offline, a new Bill is in the offing to make it criminal for citizens not to bear phones the same way they carry their IDs.