Nubian Rights Forum & 2 others v Attorney General & 6 others; Child Welfare Society & 9 others (Interested Parties) [2020] eKLR Aadhaar’s system cited by the Petitioners’’ witnesses are distinguishable from the system employed under NIIMS because their breaches are attributable to the operational mistakes where the persons collecting data were paid according to the volumes of people they registered, thereby placing data collection in the hands of commercial businessmen. 416. He therefore took the position that the allegations in the Petitions were unfounded, the Petitions lack merit and ought to be dismissed with costs. 417. Mr. Jerome Ochieng was cross examined on his affidavits by Mr. Waikwa and Mr. Awele, the respective Counsel for the 1st and 2nd Petitioners. He was questioned about his qualifications by Mr. Waikwa, which he highlighted as a Master’s Degree in Information Engineering, a Bachelor’s Degree in Maths and Computers, a Diploma in Management Information Systems and various professional courses on ICT. He also detailed his employment in government in various ministries and departments, including the ICT department. He confirmed that his understanding of NIIMS arises from his work and expertise, and also as a member of the Inter-ministerial Committee on NIIMS. 418. On the preparations and development of NIIMS, Mr. Ochieng stated that the discussions on NIIMS started in January 2018, and he referred to a copy of his letter dated 10th May 2018 inviting the technical committee on NIIMS to a meeting. He, however, clarified that the technical development of NIIMS commenced in February 2019 even though the preparations had started much earlier. He testified that the software for NIIMS was developed by Kenyans, and stated that tests had been dome on algorithms to ensure they work, and on the system to verify its security and integrity, and ensure that there is no deduplication of data. He also explained that the data collected from NIIMS was currently not being utilized, in compliance with the orders of this Court, but that they had developed and tested the algorithms needed to utilize the data. 419. Mr. Ochieng confirmed that he knew of a company known as IDEMIA. He testified that the Ministry of Interior procured 31,000 registration kits in late 2018 from OT Morpho, which is now known as IDEMIA. He stated that the government cleaned the said kits in April 2019 before the start of the Huduma Namba registration exercise. However, that apart from procuring the kits from OT Morpho, the government did not engage the company in any other way in NIIMS. 420. Mr. Ochieng explained his understanding of the Huduma Namba and stated that it is a single source of truth, a place where one can find credible identification information about a person who seeks government services. According to Mr. Ochieng, the more data you have, the more credible the information on identity, hence his analogy of data to the new oil. On the SWOT report he annexed, Mr. Ochieng testified that if Kenya was to achieve a universal birth registration system that allocates a unique identifier to each child when it is born, then it would assist in personal identification. He denied that NIIMS overlaps this objective and stated that part of the motivation for NIIMS was from the SWOT report. He also testified that there was public participation in the development of NIIMS, and denied that it was only government and UNICEF officials who were involved in preparing the SWOT report. 421. Mr. Ochieng confirmed that the Data Protection Policy was approved by Parliament in 2019 and denied that it was prepared to frustrate the instant Petitions. He stated that there is no NIIMS policy in existence. He agreed with the objectives and benefits of NIIMS stated in Eng. Kibicho’s affidavit and testified that NIIMS seeks to achieve inter-linkages and harmonization of different databases to address the challenges faced in identification. He disagreed that a longer time ought to have been taken to develop NIIMS, and stated that there is no time to consider alternatives due to the urgency for credible identification data. 422. When questioned by Mr. Waikwa on the law that regulates NIIMS, Mr. Ochieng responded that it is the Registration of Persons Act and that other than an executive Order on NIIMS, there are no rules on NIIMS. He also http://www.kenyalaw.org - Page 61/174