High Court slams brakes on Maisha Namba rollout

Kenya Kwanza's Maisha Namba is bound to suffer the same fate as Jubilee's Huduma Namba. [File, Standard]

The High Court has for the second time stopped the government from issuing new generation identification cards dubbed Maisha Namba.

Justice Lawrence Mugambi ordered the government not to issue the cards until a fresh application is heard and determined.

“Pending the hearing and determination of this application, a conservatory order be and is hereby issued staying/halting the further and continued implementation of the Unique Personal Identifier (Maisha Namba), 3rd Generation National Identification Card (Maisha Card), Maisha Digital ID and Maisha Database,” ruled Justice Mugambi.

Haki na Sheria Initiative, a human rights lobby sought the orders yesterday. It is the second time it challenged the rollout of the Kenya Kwanza administration project.

The lobby group’s lawyers Yussuf Bashir and Summayah Mokku argued that privacy cannot be guaranteed as the Maisha ecosystem will be accessible to private firms that are not necessarily offering government services.

Bashir and Mokku expressed fear that the current 10-year expiry of the crucial citizenship document means that anyone who either has no money to renew or is unable to will be considered an alien in their own country.

They argued that the Ministry of Interior confirmed that those who will be issued with the new IDs will part with Sh1,000 for renewal and Sh300 for first-time ID applicants.

They asserted that the directive is unfair since the old arrangement required nothing from those eligible to apply for an ID and Sh100 to replace a lost one.

The Judge heard that this would in turn limit Kenyans from voting, accessing education, movement, and healthcare among others.

“The condemning of the entire citizenry to the payment of these sums especially in light of all the other concerns is premature; the refund of this is also a matter that cannot ultimately be done without great hardship after the Maisha Ecosystem is deemed unconstitutional,” Bashir and Mokku argued.

In the first case, the court heard that Kenya Kwanza administration has prescribed more data to be collected, including iris, and facial features.

Haki na Sheria expressed fears that data could be a commodity for sale since private firms cannot access the system freely.

The lobby argued that the government is committing the same sins that the Jubilee Government committed on Huduma Namba.

Bashir and Mokku told the court that on Huduma Namba, that the Jubilee government trusted a centralised server to store data, the same case for Maisha Namba.

At the same time, the two lawyers said the current regime rolled out the data collection before it put up the infrastructure and the law to safeguard the data. This, they said was a similar problem identified in the Huduma exercise.

At least 5000 persons who had lost or had defaced IDs applied for Maisha Namba daily.

Further, the lawyers said, the government had left out persons who are vetted before getting an ID. This was a similar problem with Huduma Namba as the Nubian community argued that the majority who had IDs were left out due to the slow vetting process.

Thye asserted that the current regulations used by Kenya Kwanza are no different from what Huduma Namba was based on as they do not address major issues raised on digital IDs.

“In a nutshell, the petitioner contends that neither the amended regulations nor the press release addresses a transition path for persons currently facing challenges in acquiring national IDs and Birth Certificates, how certificates of birth issued before the effective date of the Birth Rules Amendments will be integrated et al,” the lawyers said.

This is the third case filed challenging Maisha Namba. The first case was filed by the Katiba Institute.

In the case, Katiba’s lawyer Dudley Ochiel argued despite millions of Kenyans being forced to register for Huduma Namba in 2019 today they hold a card that is not recognized or cannot be used to transact any legal function.

Ochiel stated that the government rolled out the new exercise even before a law was enacted.

“They do not have a legal basis for rolling out Maisha Namba,” he said.

At the same time, the lawyer said, the government had not conducted a data protection impact assessment as required by section 31 of the Data Protection Act.

The Judge also heard that the government did not conduct public participation. According to Ochiel, Kenya Kwanza is repeating the same sins that the Jubilee Government committed on Huduma Namba.