Interior secretary Joseph ole Lenku Thursday said that the Americans will visit Kenya next month, paving the way for a pilot project on the use of the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones.
Security agencies are preparing to use drones in the fight against terrorism, poaching and cattle rustling in a deal with the US.
Kenya struck the deal with the College of Computing, Mathematical and Natural Sciences at the University of Maryland whose officials will offer technical expertise in the technology.
Interior secretary Joseph ole Lenku Thursday said that the Americans will visit Kenya next month, paving the way for a pilot project on the use of the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones.
“The meeting explored the need to use technology not only to fight poaching, but also other criminal activities such as terrorism, cattle-rustling and organised crime, which are serious security challenge to Kenya,” he said at a media briefing in Nairobi to take stock of the discussions they had at the concluded US-Africa summit.
Kenya has been hit in the recent past by terror attacks from Al-Shabaab militants. The drones would reduce costs of conducting wildlife census which is done by hired light aircraft, an exercise subject to human error.
With drones, the exercise is recorded in footages that can be retrieved and carefully analysed.
Mr Lenku also noted that US-based technology giant IBM had agreed to help Kenya in fighting cyber-crime, coming just days after several government websites were hacked into by a group calling itself “Anonymous.”
Another America company Richmar and Associate Inc will partner with Kenya in creation of biometric identification card dubbed Moja card.
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