Nubian Rights Forum & 2 others v Attorney General & 6 others; Child Welfare Society & 9 others (Interested Parties) [2020] eKLR was conceived to provide a Common Reference Model (CRM) geared towards facilitating efficient coordination, linkages of registration systems, and information. Its purpose was also to enable convenient, equitable and innovative access by users to integrated government registration services under the larger scheme of e-government projects including the Integrated Financial Management System (IFMIS) among others. 326. According to Dr. Kibicho, some of the objectives of the IPRS were to develop a centralized national population register that would contain information of all Kenyans and foreigners resident in Kenya; to improve data storage and access in all population registration agencies; to facilitate efficient coordination and linkages of registration agencies; and to improve overall registration capacity within the registration agencies. 327. Nevertheless, IPRS had its own challenges which included the fact that an individual’s data was still being collected by multiple government agencies, which resulted in continued wastage and inefficiency; that in some cases, the data being integrated into IPRS contained inaccuracies, pointing to the need to collect personal information from the source again; that information relating to children was not being captured comprehensively at birth; that IPRS did not constitute a master register which could be regarded as “a single source of truth” as it relied on information from multiple, sometimes conflicting, sources; and that the multiple registrations systems resulted in issuance of several identity documents such as identity cards, passports, driving licences and National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) cards. 328. Dr. Kibicho averred that the above challenges were pointed out in a report prepared by the Ministry of Information, Communication and Technology and the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) after a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) Analysis on Existing Identification and Registration Systems in Kenya. To build on the progress made by IPRS and address the challenges identified by the SWOT Report, the government initiated the NIIMS programme which was operationalised by Executive Order No. 1 of 2018. 329. The purpose of the NIIMS programme, according to Dr. Kibicho, was to create and manage a central master population database which will be the “single source of truth” on a person’s identity and will serve as the only reference point for personal information for Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and other stakeholders. His averment was that the main objectives of NIIMS are to collate, store, integrate, harmonize and facilitate sharing of population data from nearly all databases; provide a single source of truth (one-stop-shop) on persons’ identity data for citizens and foreign nationals residing in Kenya; and to undertake national biometric registration of all citizens and foreign nationals residing in Kenya. 330. It was his averment further that NIIMS is crucial for development planning and decision making. That it is also a key component of the government’s service delivery commitments, currently prioritized under the “the Big 4 Agenda” which include food security, affordable housing, manufacturing and affordable healthcare. 331. Dr. Kibicho further highlighted some of the key benefits of NIIMS as including optimal utilization of scarce public resources; an accurate, reliable and comprehensive population registration database; verification, validation and authentication of primary data source; accurate population data for planning and service delivery; digital and inter-linked access to information for decision-making; and standardization and streamlining of relevant government processes. 332. Other benefits of NIIMS identified by Dr. Kibicho were access to registration services by all Kenyans; improvement of provision of security by government to citizens particularly in light of threat of terrorist attacks; improvement in enforcement of law and order including facilitation of early detection of fraudulent activities, minimisation of cases of identity theft and reduction of fraud in land transactions; to foster confidence and assurance in financial transactions due to the overall verifiability of personal information; and enhancement of tax collection. http://www.kenyalaw.org - Page 48/174