Smartmatic International Has Officially Denied Raila Odinga access to its Servers as ordered by the Supreme Court.
Smartmatic International, which builds and implements electronic voting systems, has denied Raila Odinga access to servers, claiming that scrutiny violates their intellectual property rights.
The company, through its Managing Director F. Gunnick, stated in a letter addressed to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), that the request by IEBC CEO Mr Marjan Hussein Marjan could not be honoured because what the commission wanted was IP protected.
According to the letter, IEBC requested the provision of images of NTC Server(s), but Smartmatic clarified that such images contain software owned and copyrighted by Smartmatic and are thus IP protected.
“Providing full access would infringe on our intellectual property rights,” the letter stated in part. Giving third parties access to our source code and security features such as transmission certificates and encrypted keys would render the system insecure – as it is now – for any future use in Kenya or anywhere else in the world.” Said the Company in a letter.
“This would not only violate our intellectual property rights, but it would also jeopardize elections in other countries that use or have used our systems.” The letter proceeded.
According to Smartmatic, all physical tally reports were made available online in real-time since election night.
Martha Karua, Mr Odinga’s running mate, Youth Advocacy for Africa (YAA), Mr Peter Kirika, Mr Khelef Khalifa, Mr George Osewe, Ms Ruth Mumbi, and Ms Grace Kamau are among the petitioners who were to be granted access to the servers.
The court orders were issued in response to their allegations that non-commission staff deliberately compromised IEBC’s election technology.
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