The Huduma Namba rollout has been found illegal by the High Court, citing a conflict with the Data Protection Act of 2019.
The high court argued that data processing must be preceded by a data protection impact assessment to analyze potential data processing risks and minimize them. This is in line with Section 31 of the Data Protection Act.
Justice Jairus Ngaah, who delivered the verdict, stated that the assessment was not completed before the Huduma Namba was rolled out.
The court did caution, however, that a motion to halt the Huduma Namba rollout would be futile because the government had already begun issuing the cards.
As a result, the government has been urged to put in place protections to secure Kenyans’ personal information.
