Kenya has drafted the Huduma Bill 2019 to make it mandatory to register via the National Integrated Identity Management System (NIIMS) or known locally as 'Huduma Namba'.

This follows a recent court ruling which denied the government the opportunity to enforce the system.

The NIIMS was established to ensure the roll out of government services to those who registered.

However, in March 2019, courts ruled that registration should be voluntary and no one should be denied services.

The Huduma Bill 2019 states that Huduma Namba will be used to access government services (including passport applications, driver licenses, mobile number registration or registration to vote, among others) And transaction without the Huduma Namba will result in imprisonment for one year and/or a fine of Kshs1-million.

The Bill also seeks to address the lack of data legislation in the country and protect citizen information, with data to be stored in servers or datacentres located in Kenya.

An excerpt from the Bill reads: "An individual enrolled under the NIIMS has a right to be informed of the use to which their personal data collected is to be put; access their personal data in the NIIMS database; object to any sharing of all or part of their personal data; and correction of any false or misleading data about them without delay."

It also tasks the Principal Secretary to implement reasonable and appropriate "organisational, technical and physical security measures" to protect the data against unauthorised access, disclosure, and loss or damage.

The mass registration exercise carried out between 1 April and 18 May 2019 registered about 35 million Kenyans, according to the government.

The Huduma Bill 2019 is at the public consultation stage, where members of the public can submit their memorandum to the Ministry of Interior and Coordination of National Government before 2 August 2019.