On Friday, May 30th 2025, I was illegally arrested at the onset of a long weekend.
Efforts to secure police bail or bond were frustrated, with the police claiming they did not have my file and were simply providing accommodation to me on behalf of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI). The DCI was unreachable throughout the whole weekend.
I was illegally detained for 4 nights with no charge sheet and no access to the police Occurrence Book (OB) details.
I was arrested for creating a public participation website that allowed Kenyans to send in their memoranda regarding the 2025 Finance Bill. The charge sheet that was presented in court claimed I disrupted the system by sending mass emails.
However, the emails are user-generated and tied to individual email addresses and IPs, not mass-generated.
The many emails were from actual Kenyans. Such a system was built last year as well. I remember sending my memorandum of objection using that emailer.
I asked them if they saw me crossing the expressway on foot and they said yep, they were right behind me. They even knew where I lived with my sons and had been waiting for me to leave for them to arrest me.
I reflected on my sim card’s behaviour. Months before my arrest, before I’d even made the civic email website, I suspected I was being tracked. Whenever I’d put that sim card in my smartphone, it’d send messages on its own. I’d see “message sent”. I would also get phantom notifications with sounds not native to my phone. I delegated that sim card to my feature phone.
I’d then get some calls from random numbers, where the caller would speak in strange languages including Arabic, and I’d tell them “wrong number” then forget about it. In the week after I made the emailing platform and before my arrest, around Monday or Tuesday, the caller called my work line and personal line concurrently. I called back and asked, “who are you really, and what have you planned for me?”
The calls stopped, but now I’d get a text message from Tala asking me to pay my loan. The messages were from random numbers, not Tala’s short code. I’d simply delete and ignore. In hindsight, I see that whoever was tracking me was triangulating my location using these calls and texts.
Kenya’s Data Protection Act provides a strong legal foundation for data privacy, limiting how public and private entities collect, process, and transfer personal data. However, it explicitly exempts national security and intelligence operations, which may use surveillance with less oversight, provided there’s court-ordered authorisation. I am yet to see such a court order issued in my case.
In practice, law enforcement collaborations with telcos have led to significant metadata tracking, sometimes operating in grey zones. Enforcement by the Data Commissioner addresses private-sector misuses, but government surveillance remains shielded by separate security legislation.
The warrant must clearly identify the officer, specify the data to be seized, and authorise searching of the designated premises or persons.
Upon executing the warrant, they must present a copy to those affected and prepare an itemised list of seized or inaccessible data along with the time and date, copies of which must be provided to the individual in control of the computer.
I am yet to receive my items or take plea.
For now, I will continue living my life as close to normal as possible. I am unable to boycott that particular phone provider because I run a business that relies on calls and mobile money that is widely used in this country. I am a law abiding citizen. I work to feed, clothe and shelter my little ones. I constantly talk to my parents over the phone. And they most likely will continue to monitor my calls and movements.
This kind of intimidation and repression will surely come to pass and the people behind it all will one day answer for their actions. But for now, we must admit and accept this: we are living in a state of surveillance. All of us.
