President Kenyatta launches Integrated Population Registration System

A new computer system will link up government agencies that hold personal information of individuals in a bid to enhance efficiency and security.

Integrated Population Registration System, launched by President Kenyatta in Nairobi on Wednesday, will store data of all Kenyans and visitors at the central location for easy electronic access by institutions, including private corporations that provide crucial and sensitive services.

At the touch of a button, it would produce one’s details stored at the various registries including births and deaths, marriages and divorce, as well as the passport, aliens, ID cards and citizenship registers.

Such details would be linked and relayed in real time to other agencies like Lands registry, National Social Security Fund, law enforcement agencies, National Hospital Insurance Fund, Kenya Revenue Authority, Financial agencies, Immigrations, National Transport and Safety Authority, Independent Electoral, Universities, and Electoral and Boundaries Commission.

UNDESIRABLE ELEMENTS

“It is imperative for the government to have the means to collect, verify and administer data on every individual resident in our country. This is necessary to provide adequate and efficient socio-economic services. It is also critical in order to keep the country safe and free from the activities of undesirable elements,” the President said.

The system already in use by some agencies was tested for a year before being launched. So far, it has data of over 16 million Kenyans and 200,000 refugees. The rest of the data is expected to be in the IPRS within six months.

Such information would be available to banks to prevent impersonation and fraud as well as the IEBC to prevent registration using documents of a dead person.

“We need to know how many people we serve, who they are, what their needs and aspirations are. We need to know about new citizens as soon as they are born or naturalised. Likewise, we needed to know about those who leave our midst, when and why,” the President said.

Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph Nkaissery described it as “the common reference and single source of truth for data”.

He said: “We shall be able to trace individuals, we shall know the country’s population and we shall be assured that dead people will not vote.”

SIGNED CONTRACT

Institutions linked to system have been making up to one million enquiries every day.

For instance, the system is already in use by Kenya Commercial Bank for Safaricom’s M-Pesa services.

The E-wallet used for paying services by Nairobi County government has also been included and a plan is in the pipeline to bring in the mobile direct payment system for the National Treasury.

Registration and issuing of mobile phone SIM cards, as well as issuance of passports and KRA Pins and registration of motor vehicles will also be inter-linked.

Setting up the system started in 2011 after the defunct Ministry of State for Immigration and Registration of Persons signed a contract to develop it. It’s now a directorate under the Ministry for Interior and Coordination of National Government.

Before the system, institutions have been relying on information from multiple databases.

“Anyone desiring information on an individual has to navigate huge volumes of manual data in different places. Verification and due diligence information is difficult. In turn, this challenge hampers the capacity of stakeholders to detect or prevent fraud, impersonation or other criminal activity. It also makes it costly to generate proper planning information,” the President noted.

In future, other private organisations expected to come on board include insurance firms and research agencies.

The President warned against tampering with date stored under the IPRS.

“I must remind everyone that for this system to work and sustain its integrity, we must be mindful of our civic duty. We must ensure that all births and deaths are transmitted to the National Population Register.

“We must also ensure that all aliens are documented. All officers responsible must always ensure that this information is always up-to-date,” he added.

– Daily Nation