Digital –Government of President William Ruto has, today Wednesday May 24, announced plans to introduce digital identification cards for every adult Kenyan.
Ruto, while opening the seventh ID4Africa Augmented General Meeting in Nairobi, said this is part of the government’s plan to digitise its civil registration and vital statistics system.
“The government is deliberating the implementation of a civil registration and vital statistics system that meets the imperatives of a new digital era. The new system must be able to assign unique personal identification numbers at birth to all persons born in Kenya,” said Ruto.
His government also wants to start a ‘passenger information solution’ to monitor movement in and out of the country.
“… upgrade the current national identity card into a national digital identity management system and adopt the most sophisticated advanced passenger information solution to address entry and exit at our borders and ports,” Dr. Ruto said.
He seized the opportunity to urge digital players to contribute their input so that improve efficiency in the digital sector.
“We cannot postpone or downgrade our identity management endeavours. Our development partners, therefore, have an opportunity to explore possible areas of collaboration with our State Department for Immigration and Citizen Services to support our identity management programmes,” President Ruto clarified.
Speaking in the same function, Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki noted that the new ID cards will have a machine-readable chip, QR code and allow web-based authentication.
In March this year, new government of Kenya Kwanza initiated the Unique Personal Identifier UPI to capture and register all newborn babies at birth and record deaths in the country.
