Kenyan citizens will not be able to access government services such as health, education, and voting without a Huduma Namba. This came to light after a draft of the Huduma Bill 2019 was made available for public comments, mid-July. The proposed bill makes it compulsory for every Kenyan citizen -Section 11(1)- to obtain both the Huduma Namba and card, despite the law courts stating that it should be a voluntary exercise.
Huduma Namba, also known as the National Integrated Identity Management System (NIIMS), shall be effected immediately once the bill is passed, replacing different forms of already-issued government IDs (Third Schedule -S.68).
Consider the services (Section 8) for which Huduma Namba would be mandatory, and how verification could easily fail due to the lack of robust electricity and internet connectivity.  According to the draft bill, failure to get a Huduma Namba will attract punitive repercussions (Second Schedule -S.56), such as being jailed for a year and exorbitant fines including a year in prison and/or a Kshs. 1million fine for a transaction without a Huduma Namba all of which, seem wildly disproportionate, especially because of the offenses that merit a general penalty go undefined in the bill.
On a positive note, it is good to see that the bill does not include National Security's use of the NIIMS data in the prevention, investigation, prosecution of crime or some other purpose that could be used to justify accessing the database for surveillance.
Mozilla and Lawyers Hub hosted the tech community, the legal fraternity, policymakers, civil society, the business sector, media, and the general public to discuss the draft Bill, its implications on privacy and data protection at an event held in Nairobi on the last Friday of July 2019.