Kenya’s National Integrated Identity Management System (NIIMS), also known as Huduma Namba, has been declared invalid by the country’s High Court. This after the Katiba Institute filed a case against the system arguing that data protection laws were not adhered to in collecting personal details.

The Institute said laws can be retrospective, given that the Data Protection Act was passed after the NIIMS registration process had been concluded.

The Court found in favour of the applicant and said that the roll-out of NIIMS indeed violated the provisions of the Data Protection Act passed in parliament in 2019.

Justice Jairus Ngaah said: “I would reiterate that there always the duty on the part of the state to ensure that Bill of Rights under Chapter IV of the Constitution, including the right to privacy under article 31 of the Act be respected and protected.”

He added: “If anything, it is the individual’s constitutional rights and which for all intents and purposes, are vested rights that were under threat by the excess of stat in collecting and processing data without prior legal framework to ensure that even as the state embraces a new system of identification, right to privacy is protected.”

The Court ordered that the respondents (Ministry of ICT, Ministry of Interior and Coordination of National Government and the Attorney General) conduct a data protection impact assessment per the Data Protection Act 2019 before continuing with the roll out of the Huduma Cards.

While the government has already released over seven million Huduma cards, the system is not fully operational as ‘a single source of truth’ and national identity card is still widely used.

This is a second blow to the roll out of the system which was developed to create a unified identity platform and digitise government services.

The government envisioned that the Huduma Card would be used in place of a driving license, national identity card, and/or national health insurance card. But a recent decision by the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) to use biometric technology to curb claim fraud has cast doubt over the Huduma Card replacing these services anytime soon.

In August the government announced a planned mass registration for those who missed out on the first phase. It is unclear as to whether or not the latest legal ruling will impact this process.

Officials have yet to respond.