Nubian Rights Forum & 2 others v Attorney General & 6 others; Child Welfare Society & 9 others (Interested Parties) [2020] eKLR 478. As regards the Petitioners’ concern on the security of the data, his averment was that the contents of the national master population register is limited only to the personal information that is sufficient to uniquely identify an individual and no more. This, he averred, is aptly manifested by NIIMS data capture forms. Further, that the purpose limitation and data minimization in the architectural design of NIIMS obviates the justification for the use of data for purposes extraneous to its originally intended purpose on account of its ready availability. Mr. Murithi asserted that the personal information kept in the NIIMS database is secure because the moment the requisite biometric and biographical information is captured by the NIIMS data capture kits at the point of registration, the information is encrypted whether the data capture device is online or offline and the encrypted biometric and biographical information is transmitted, in encrypted form, to the requisite servers for deduplication. Further, the templates of biometric and biographical information stored in the NIIMS database are encrypted as well and in the premises, a data breach on NIIMS database would only reveal encrypted templates of personal identity information which cannot be unmasked without the requisite decryption key. 479. It was Mr. Muriithi deposition that the security of identity data is further guaranteed by the fact that the databases of the institutions linked to NIIMS database will only access NIIMS database for purposes of establishment of respective identities of individuals. Secondly, the functional data, such as criminal records, will remain resident in the respective repositories of the institutions that are linked to NIIMS database, in this case, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations database, and the NIIMS database cannot access the functional data variously stored in the said respective repositories of the institutions linked to NIIMS database. 480. It was his averment therefore that access to the NIIMS database would not provide the purported 360 degrees view of an individual’s life alleged by the Petitioners. In his view, in the circumstances outlined above, there are sufficient technical safeguards that regulate the collection, processing, access and sharing of identity data by NIIMS. As regards children identity data, Mr. Muriithi averred that additional/special technical safeguards were incorporated in the architectural design of NIIMS database with a view to providing the requisite safety. 481. Mr. Muriithi was cross-examined by Hon. Martha Karua, the lead Counsel for the 2nd Petitioner, and Mr. Bashir, the Counsel for the 1st Petitioner. On examination by Hon. Karua, Mr. Muriithi confirmed that he was not part of the benchmarking team that went to other countries to study similar identity systems, but stated that he was involved in the design of NIIMS by adopting best practices from the bench marking reports. He stated that the role of the ICT Ministry was to handle the technical issues and safeguards of the NIIMS, while the legal issues were handled by the business owner, which was the Ministry of Interior. He however stated that the ICT Ministry is the one that developed the Data Protection Policy and Bill. 482. He further testified that the technical safeguards are only known to the developers of the system, and that the safeguards they put in place for children was that their biometric data would only be captured from the age of six years. According to Mr. Muriithi, there are two levels of architecture of NIIMS. The first, which he termed the high level architecture, can be disclosed. However, that the second, which is the low level detailed architecture of the system, cannot be provided for security reasons. 483. Mr. Muriithi was cross-examined by Mr. Bashir on the sharing of data between NIIMS and other government agencies and functional databases. His view was that this would not be a good idea, and that there will be no back and forth sharing of data between the master database and the functional databases. Further, that there will be information flows to and from the master database to the functional databases in terms of queries, and on a needs basis determined by the institutional mandate. Mr. Muriithi stated that there will be mechanisms of recording who has accessed the system, but there is no system for citizens to know who has accessed their data. He reiterated that the intention of NIIMS is to authenticate the identity of all Kenyan citizens and foreigners by way of biometric data, and that no Kenyan citizen should be left out. 484. On re-examination by Mr. Nyaundi, Mr. Muriithi clarified that the high level architecture diagrams of the http://www.kenyalaw.org - Page 71/174