Kenya to sell eCitizen and government data to businesses and NGOs

Last year, many Kenyans raised eyebrows when the government signed a health data partnership with the United States, with officials insisting that citizen information would remain protected. This time, the conversation is back, only closer to home, and arguably even bigger.

According to a new policy proposal by the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Digital Economy, Kenya plans to start selling non-personal data collected through platforms like eCitizen to researchers, businesses, NGOs and innovators as a new source of government revenue. The proposed National Data Governance and Emerging Technologies Council aims to facilitate the sale of at least 1,000 datasets over the next five years.

The State is eyeing everything: business registration trends, land transaction volumes, vehicle registrations, and passport application volumes. Setting up this marketplace will cost taxpayers KES 396 million, but the government views our collective data as “the new oil” and a strategic asset ripe for harvesting.

The official line? Your Personal Identifiable Information (PII), including names, phone numbers, and ID numbers, will be stripped away to comply with data protection laws. While anonymization means they must remove any PII, one would be foolish to trust this government.

The “anonymization” myth

The government argues that data is now a strategic national asset, one that can generate economic value while supporting research and innovation. On paper, that sounds reasonable.

But if I’m being completely honest, “anonymized data” has become one of those phrases that governments and tech companies throw around whenever they want the public to stop asking difficult questions.

Because here’s the uncomfortable reality: people do not spend millions buying data that tells them absolutely nothing. Data is valuable because it reveals patterns. Who lives where. Which counties apply for passports more often. Which regions are buying land. What services people use. What trends are emerging. Stack enough of those datasets together and the line between “anonymous” and “identifiable” can get dangerously thin.

Essentially, I think anonymization is just the government’s version of saying that data will be sold with enough personal information to profile Kenyans. Then, when people inevitably complain, they will simply say they anonymized it. We are just being played with the claim that they’ll remove PII.

Expect the spam influx

What happens when this data ecosystem opens up? In fact, I bet you can expect more gambling text messages going forward now that this data will likely end up in the hands of gambling companies eager to exploit consumer trends, even as Kenya’s gambling regulator plans real-time access to betting transactions.

But then again, we Kenyans leave a lot of our PII data pretty much anywhere. We routinely hand it over at estate and office gates where watchmen take records of your entry time, date, name, and phone number in a tattered book that we never know where it ends up.

A dangerous precedent

While countries like the UK and Singapore successfully monetize public data, Kenya’s aggressive push feels far more predatory. If this policy passes, our digital footprints will be packaged, priced, and passed around corporate boardrooms to spur a KES 104 billion data economy.