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Kenya closer to national digital register

Kenya , 12 Mar 2015

Kenya closer to national digital register

On Wednesday Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta launched the Integrated Population Registration System (IPRS), which will see citizens’ information stored in a central system.

The system will be used to store information of both locals and foreigners in a bid to fasten government services and also curb insecurity.

“We need to know how many people we serve, who they are, what their needs and aspirations are. We need to know about new citizens as soon as they are born or naturalised. Likewise, we need to know about those who leave our midst, when and why,” said the president at the launch.

The project concept is composed of two major phases with the first one being the establishment of a National Population Register (NPR) with data on all Kenyan citizens and foreign residents, according to a government statement.

The other phase will include a unique identifier to replace the current personal identification number, which will be assigned to everyone at birth and will act as a reference in all transactions.

According to Kenyatta the current system where the information of citizens is held in different institutions presents a myriad of challenges.

“Anyone desiring information on an individual has to navigate huge volumes of manual data in different places. Verification and due diligence information is difficult. In turn, this challenge hampers the capacity of stakeholders to detect or prevent fraud, impersonation or other criminal activity. It also makes it costly to generate proper planning information,” he said.

Civil Registration Department, National Registration Bureau, Immigration Department and Department of Refugees’ Affairs will be some of the agencies that will work to manage the system.

Kenya’s government successfully launched the eCitizen.go.ke portal where citizens can access government documents such as renewal of driving license.

Other government arms such as the ministry of Lands and Kenya Revenue Authority are also working to digitise their data and processes.

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