The Ministry of Health has put forward a legislative proposal that, if enacted, will provide the much-needed safeguards for the rights of data subjects and obligations for data controllers and processors in handling, protection and privacy of sensitive personal health data.
The draft Digital Health Bill 2023 and its proposed policies and guidelines on health data governance, telemedicine and the national unique patient identifier framework come against the backdrop of the controversial cryptocurrency project Worldcoin that exposed the government’s soft underbelly in biometric data management.
Gaps in the law saw the government caught flat-footed as individuals behind the Worldcoin mined sensitive data from Kenyans by screening their irises and sent them to US-bases multinational Amazon, in breach of the Data Protection Act of 2019.
Kenyans were induced with Sh7,000 in cryptocurrency for having their irises scanned, raising questions about Worldcoin’s generosity, the source of its money and what the data collected was meant for. The matter is under investigation by a parliamentary committee after the government suspended Worldcoin’s activities as it assessed the potential risks to health and public data safety. By the time the suspension came, over 350,000 Kenyans had already registered with Worldcoin within a week of its launch towards the end of July.
While appearing before the National Assembly ad hoc committee chaired by Narok West MP Gabriel Tongoyo on Thursday last week, Health Cabinet Secretary Susan Nakhumicha revealed that her ministry came up with the legislative proposals to protect Kenyans against irregular harvesting of their biometric data.
“With increasing technology comes the real need to ensure that data is secure and that principles of good data governance are upheld all through the data life-cycle. The Ministry of Health is therefore finalising development of legislation and policies to manage this ecosystem,” Ms Nakhumicha told the committee.
The Health ministry is spearheading digital transformation within the sector as part of efforts to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
