Rein in data theft by political parties

The Registrar of Political Parties announced a few days ago that Kenyans could now be able to easily verify their political party membership status on the e-citizen platform. What was supposed to be a normal and quiet process soon turned into a nightmare on social media.

A majority of Kenyans who posted complained that they had found their names in the register of political parties without their consent. The public response to this concern was both inadequate and disconcerting.

The law requires political parties to maintain a register of all their members. In addition, the office of the Registrar of Political Parties is required to verify and make publicly available the list of all members of political parties.

Consequently, the accuracy of the register is not an aspiration, but a legal obligation placed on both the political parties and the Registrar. By empowering the office to verify the list, the law envisages that inquiries into the authenticity of the contents will be undertaken.

Unfortunately, from the discoveries last week, it is fair to surmise that the names of most Kenyans on that list were inserted without their knowledge or consent. This is dangerous in several respects. First, we must discuss the motivations of political parties in engaging in such illegalities. The Constitution requires political parties to be of national character.

The Political Parties Act then sets numbers of members from a majority of the counties to be registered. During debate on this law, there were objections from several political parties on this requirement, arguing that it was too onerous for them to meet. This must explain the current situation.

While the law required every political party to have at least 24,000 members spread across the county, political parties designed ways of sidestepping this requirement. The current revelation on membership confirms this fact.

It is doubtful, how many of the legally registered political parties meet the membership condition and consequently the national character requirement of the Constitution.

The place of political parties in the governance of the country is well-settled. They inform the policy approaches that the country adopts through the manifestoes that their leaders use to ascend to power, and they are the first sieve of the leadership of the country. How they behave is thus an indicator of the conduct of all persons and processes in the country.

It should not be surprising that there is public outcry about their disregard of the law. Political parties seem to be perpetuating the approach of the end justifying the means and disregard of legal provisions in conduct of affairs. In 2020, a Data Commissioner was appointed following the coming into force of the Data Protection Act.

The aim of the law and the office is to safeguard citizens’ personal data and regulate the way such information is collected, stored and disseminated. To have such a public display of disregard of this development is to raise questions about the utility of the Data Protection Act into the future.

It is therefore important that several urgent steps be taken to restore citizens’ faith in the protection of their personal information and the responsibility of public agencies. First the Registrar of Political Parties must open a process so that all citizens whose names have been entered in the register of members without their consent file their complaints with her office.

In addition, she must work with parties to authenticate their records. As part of this process those that have flouted the law must be held to account, including suspension of their registration and punishment of the party officials. It is only through such action that regard for the rule of law will be restored.

The office of the Data Commissioner has her first test in demonstrating the power of her office. She must step in and ensure that the law is obeyed and use the provisions of the Data Protection Act to come to the aid of innocent Kenyans.

Elections are just over a year away. To ensure that citizens have confidence in the next elections, the current revelations cannot be swept under the carpet.