Miguna Critiques Ruto’s Billion-Shilling Digital ID Project
As President William Ruto prepares to implement the much-touted Digital Identification Card (Digital ID), outspoken attorney Miguna Miguna has made it plain that he opposes the initiative.
In a lengthy statement released on Wednesday, Miguna outlined five reasons why the ID, estimated to cost up to Ksh1 billion, should not be a top priority for the current administration.
The attorney argued in an email with the subject line ‘I oppose the imposition of the National Digital ID in Kenya’ that the country, which is classified as a third-world nation, should devote its resources to other pressing issues such as high unemployment, universal healthcare, and homelessness.
“Kenya lacks the legal, technological, and human capacity to protect privacy and prevent misuse of personal digital data. Kenya wasn’t even able to detect and prevent WorldCoin from illegally harvesting personal data from its citizens for more than one year,” argued Miguna.
“Kenya lacks the digital infrastructure to prevent cyber attacks, including hacking, hence making the harvesting, processing, and storage of digital identity prone to abuse and illegal poaching.”
The lawyer further read malice in the intended rollout arguing that the state had failed to integrate public participation and likened it to other failed projects like the Building Bridges Initiative and the Huduma Namba.
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Miguna argued that developed nations such as the United States and Canada have not yet implemented mandatory digital identification because their citizens oppose it.
“The Kenya Kwanza must refrain from forcing Kenyans to pay for another expensive white elephant with dubious origins,” he told his 2.4 million followers.
“Kenyans deserve to have clean running water, electricity, food, and healthcare per household before anyone lectures us about digital identification.”
On Tuesday, Citizen Services Principal Secretary Julius Bitok confirmed that the rollout of the Unique Personal Identifier (UPI) by the Head of State will occur on September 29.
He mentioned that the National Steering Committee for Digital Identity had endorsed the National Digital Identity Technical Committee’s recommendations.
The digital IDs will include the Maisha Card, Maisha Namba, Digital Signature, and the Master National Population Register.
Former President Uhuru Kenyatta’s attempt to digitize the national ID via a new chip-infused iteration, Huduma Namba, cost the government Ksh10 billion. The failed card collected the confidential information of 38 million people, which is currently stored in a database.
Miguna Critiques Ruto’s Billion-Shilling Digital ID Project