Kenya to Collect and Keep DNA Data of Citizens

By Khalifa Hemed
Published January 23, 2019

Police beat up women in a Nairobi toilet.Every adult Kenyan is now required to provide their DNA samples and GPS locations to the Government.

Uhuru Kenyatta, Kenya’s President, has approved changes to the current Registration of Person’s Act to enable the Registrar of Persons to collect detailed information about the specific physical location, including land reference number and house number of everyone seeking an identity card, passport, birth and death certificates, driving license, work permit and refugee identification card.

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Other detailed information that the government shall collect from the citizen include “hand geometry, earlobe geometry, retina and iris patterns, voice waves and Deoxyribonucleic Acid in digital form.”

Every adult Kenyan is now required to provide their DNA samples and GPS locations to the Government while applying for national identification documents like passports and birth certificates.Though the government views the move as a boost in the fight against spiralling crime, including terrorism, it is likely to see rights activists rushing to court over the former’s possible infringement of privacy and the assumption that everyone is a criminal unless proved innocent that is contrary to the country’s law that says everyone is innocent unless proved guilty.

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The changes to the law shall see the creation of an agency known as National Integrated Identity Management Systems (NIIMS) that shall be in charge of all national identification documents that shall also have to be printed, distributed and collected from a central location.

Besides harmonising verifying and authenticating information from other databases in government agencies relating to registration of persons, NIIMS shall also be expected to assign a unique national identification service number, known as Huduma Namba, to every registered person, citizen and foreign, in Kenya.

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