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Curb risks in data sale plan
Governments across the world no longer rely solely on taxes as a source of funds to meet their basic financial commitments. They come up with innovative ways to ease the burden on taxpayers. They seek to expand revenue beyond traditional taxes to alleviate public financial strain and fund development.
Data is a valuable resource that can be used to generate additional revenue. The State plans an e-Citizen data sale to boost revenue by building a marketplace to sell data collected through platforms such as e-Citizen and the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS).
The data is in demand by researchers, businesses and other organisations. The National Data Governance and Emerging Technologies Council will facilitate the sale of at least 1,000 datasets from different sources over the next five years, ramping up government revenue.
However, personal data such as names, phone numbers, email addresses, identification numbers, or images will not be put on the marketplace, in line with data protection laws.
The State intends to sell information including business registration trends, passport and immigration application volumes by region, vehicle registration statistics, birth and death trends, land transaction volumes, regional crop production data, and traffic flows.
The platform will be set up for Sh396 million over the five years, with the government keen to create a lucrative and continuous revenue stream.
However, there is a danger of buyers using bulk data to target citizens for political campaigns or with predatory financial products. There is a national security threat from cybercriminals.
The risks of privacy violations, identity leaks, and data falling into malicious hands can be severe. But even as the State seeks to boost revenue, it must also protect private data from breaches and violations of privacy laws.
