By Peter Nalika
On July 16, the Hyatt Regency, Nairobi, will host the Smart Government Summit, a good time to evaluate the country’s achievement in digitalizing the delivery of government services. Kenya has achieved tremendous progress over the last decade: the implementation of eCitizen, the development of one-stop shops in the country, that is, Huduma Kenya, and the incorporation of mobile technology, including payment solutions, have revolutionized the way citizens interact with the government. Yet, as we approach this gathering of public‑sector technocrats and policy-makers, critical questions arise: Are digital services truly accessible, equitable, and secure? Or are we advancing technology at the cost of leaving vulnerable Kenyans behind?
That Kenya, driven by leadership in mobile banking, is the Silicon Savannah, cannot be gainsaid. But beneath this achievement lies the digital divide. Low-income and rural citizens do not have smartphones, internet, or general digital literacy, especially women. Although strong, e-citizen is not accessible to those who are not connected to the internet or do not know how to use digital systems adequately.
Unless during the Summit, we bring digital inclusion to another level, by making investments in infrastructure, creating community hubs, and training citizens on how to use it, we risk seeing e-government as a privilege, and not a right. The Summit should therefore challenge delegates to champion universal digital access as vigorously as they promote digital platforms.
Data Protection as the Weak Link
After millions of biometric data points on Huduma Namba and Maisha Namba identity systems. Kenya needs to insist on high standards of data protection. Despite this progress, significant challenges remain. One of the biggest hurdles is low public awareness. Many Kenyans are still unaware of their data protection rights and obligations under the DPA. While young people being digital natives are becoming more aware of their privacy rights. Breaches like the political parties’ misuse of personal data show just how vulnerable many still are. Ensuring that all citizens understand their rights to privacy is a critical next step.
At the Smart Government Summit, a strategic pivot is needed: government must lead not lag in data stewardship. Public agencies should be mandated to publish transparency reports, register with ODPC, and undergo regular audits. Only then can citizens feel confident feeding their personal data into digital databases.
The Summit offers a chance to commit to privacy-by-design in all future public-sector tech projects. Embedding encryption, consent management, and data minimization from the outset. Drawing on Kenya’s digital tools, the public sector must now set the standard for ethical tech. Rather than follow private-sector models that often prioritize convenience over privacy.
The Summit also provides an opportunity for the Kenya ICT ministry and ODPC to chart a post-digital hybrid of national learning. Civic-school curriculum to a national media campaign. The communities in Kenya must also incorporate community paralegals and grassroots NGOs into the deployment of key digital platforms. This is in order to empower excluded populations as part of digital ID campaigns.
Way Forward
In a bid to make sure that the e-Government systems of Kenya are used to attain their desired objectives without compromising the confidence of the administration and protecting their privacy. The Smart Government Summit must yield a number of tangible results.
Public Sector Data Compliance Scorecard
To begin with, an urgent case needs to be established to have a Public Sector Data Compliance Scorecard commissioned and published. This scoreboard would put ministries, agencies, and digital services according to registered status, clarity of privacy policies, application of encryption, and reporting of data breach mechanism. Such a move would not only help create transparency but also provide an incentive to the institutions to reform to reach the compliance levels.
Privacy-by-Design Principles
Secondly, there should be a ministerial regulation to ensure privacy-by-design principles on any future digital platform of the public service. Under this rule, Privacy Impact Assessment ought to apply to all the platforms, the use of robust cryptography standards, collecting as little data as possible, transparent, and easy-to-understand interfaces, to stating that you accept their terms.
Community Digital Inclusion Alliances
The government ought to initiate Community Digital Inclusion Alliances that would help in bridging the digital divide. These would entail the collaboration between the county governments, NGOs and mobile network operators to create digital hubs in the marginalised areas. The project must be informed by quantifiable goals, i.e., one digital hub per 10,000 inhabitants, and evaluated with the aid of performance monitoring indicators.
Public Awareness
The other pillar of a good e-Government is public awareness. There should be a joint creation of a national campaign on data protection education by the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner. It should be coupled with the Ministry of ICT. Such an initiative would use the media and other community figures to spread the word about digital rights.
Lastly, there is a need to increase the e-Citizens system to incorporate a separate redress and feedback portal. This capability would have allowed the user to report the malfunction of the system. In addition to security issues, or in cases of tampering. The system must be transparent and publicly monitor the solutions to the problems so that there is accountability and responsiveness with escalations using progress dashboards. All these would go a long way in establishing a strong basis for a digital government platform that is all-inclusive, secure, and built on the rights of the citizen.
The Smart Government Summit on July 16 focuses on a timely moment. Kenya is at the edge of the digital revolution in the public sector. However, until we close the digital divide, strengthen rules about compliance in the public sector, and develop trust among our citizens, we set ourselves up as a house of cards that is bound to fall soon.
