Communications Authority of Kenya boss Francis Wangusi. Photo/FILE
What you need to know:
Regulator says websites operating from abroad make it difficult to track hackers.
Most ISPs prefer to host their data abroad to benefit from economies of scale of international firms with bulk clients compared to local data centres.
They also enjoy enhanced legal documents protection abroad.
The Communications Authority of Kenya (CAK) will come up with a licensing condition that could compel Internet service providers (ISPs) to shift websites hosted abroad back to the country in the fight against cybercrime.
Most ISPs prefer to host their data abroad to benefit from economies of scale of international firms with bulk clients compared to local data centres. They also enjoy enhanced legal documents protection abroad.
The regulator says that hosting websites outside Kenya has made it difficult to trace cyber criminals, exposing the country to harm.
The move is expected to boost local firms such as East Africa Data Centre and Safaricom, which plan to build a data centre at Konza Techno City, among others.
It will make it much faster for Internet users to access content or receive mails sent from within the country. Incidentally, Safaricom intends to shift its mobile money transfer services hosting from Germany to Kenya.
“At first we will begin by persuading the ISPs that are hosting their websites offshore to do it locally,” said CAK director-general Francis Wangusi.
“We are going to start with all government emails domain names which must all be .ke and with time we will compel all ISPs to have their websites hosted locally.”
The move would also address problems associated with the undersea fibre optic cable cuts, which normally result in undelivered emails for the duration of the outage as well as mitigate situation where sensitive information such as banking or health records traffic are tampered with.
Mr Wangusi said that cases of data tampered with abroad pose a legal challenge on what law to apply. However, absence of local data protection laws has made firms jittery to host their information locally.
Article 31 of the Constitution grants citizens the right to privacy, including a clause preventing infringement of “the privacy of their communication,” but Parliament is yet to debate and pass the Data Protection Bill 2013.
East Africa Data managing director Dan Kwach said storing local and regional data within East Africa would help secure continent’s digital future.
“There is this myth — that Kenya does not have enough technical capacity on ICT and hence the reason why most people prefer hosting their data internationally,” Mr Kwach told the Business Daily during the Connected Kenya Summit in Mombasa last week.
“That needs to be demystified. Most IT firms operating in Kenya have the ability to recruit some of the best brains in the world and bring them here, so that shouldn’t be an excuse anymore.”
He, however, noted that there was a need to come up with legislation on who should access information stored locally to safeguard against abuse.
In February, the East Africa Data Centre secured a contract to host Kenya Internet Exchange Point (KIXP). The exchange enables local ISPs to easily exchange traffic within the country without the need for multiple international hops.
KIXP has spent more than 10 years at its previous site but relocated to the East Africa Data Centre saying it needed a facility that guarantees connectivity, security and power supply to support its future growth objective.
The CAK said it is also working with other East African countries to form a regional Internet exchange point to keep online traffic within the region.
ICT Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i said that Kenya loses nearly Sh2 billion annually to cybercrime thus the need to enact laws that strike a balance between rights to privacy and protect national security.
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