The government will start selling non-personal data collected through platforms like eCitizen to generate extra revenue from information in demand by researchers, businesses and other organisations.
In a new policy proposal, the Ministry of Information, Communication and Technology and the Digital Economy will establish an agency to aggregate data from various State organs and oversee its sale.
The National Data Governance and Emerging Technologies Council will be expected to facilitate the sale of at least 1,000 datasets from different sources over the next five years, ramping up government revenue.
Data collected by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) and other State organs in the course of executing their mandates will also be offered for sale to businesses, researchers, NGOs and innovators through the State-run marketplace.
Non-personal data on eCitizen includes number of businesses, demand trends for government services, passport and immigration application volumes by region, birth, death and marriage registrations trends, vehicle registration statistics, and land transaction volumes.
In addition to data from eCitizen, the government collects several other datasets from Kenyans that it sees an opportunity in selling, including traffic flow and crop production by region.
Personal data, which includes names, phone numbers, email addresses, identification numbers, or images, will not be put on the marketplace, in line with Kenya’s data protection laws.
The proposals are contained in the National Data Governance Policy, which seeks to introduce new safeguards for Kenya’s data and its designation as a strategic national asset, paving the way for monetisation.
“Establish a national marketplace for the lawful exchange of non-personal, anonymised and aggregated datasets in the public sector, private sector, research institutions, and civil society,” the ministry says in the policy proposal.
“The marketplace shall define clear licensing models, pricing tiers, including free access for public good uses and transparent revenue treatment for government data.”
The marketplace is expected to cost up to Sh396 million to build and operate over five years, and is expected to yield more in revenue to the government.
While the ministry doesn’t specifically disclose which data will be targeted for monetisation, it reveals that different State departments sit on troves of data that can be anonymised and monetised.
“The proliferation of sector-specific and government digital services, including eCitizen, has generated massive data volumes across public and private sectors,” says the ministry in the proposed policy.
The government avers that creating a way to monetise the data will unlock economic gains to the country and offer a way for Kenyans to benefit from their passively created resource.
“The recognition of data as a national strategic asset would foster a trusted, regulated data market to unlock economic opportunities and societal benefits,” states the policy.
To oversee the data marketplace, the Ministry is proposing the establishment of a National Data Governance and Emerging Technologies Council and a Data Governance Office to run the platform and implement other proposed policies.
Monetising collected data
The proposal comes amid a growing appreciation of data as an important resource globally, with some experts describing it as “the new oil”. Recent studies have shown that big tech companies like Google and Meta earn up to Sh20 million from the data they mine from each internet user globally, highlighting the treasure trove the government could be sitting on.
Governments across the world are adopting models of monetising collected data, creating an additional revenue stream. Singapore has one of the most developed data markets in the world. It allows free access to certain datasets, but charges for others, like real estate development trends.
The United Kingdom also has a semblance of such a system, through Ordnance Survey, which makes over Sh34 billion annually from selling State-owned geospatial data to private sector developers.
In Africa, Kenya may be the first to develop such a system, but data governance is picking up pace continentally, with countries seeking to seize control of data mined from their citizens and retaining it within their borders for the economic benefit.
