Thread by @NubianRights

The petitioners have called their first witness #HudumaNamba

The witness has adopted the evidence in her affidavit and has been turned over for cross-examination by the counsel for GoK respondents #HudumaNamba

Cross-examination questions to witness @Bomu focus on the rights of children and handling of children's digital data as well as the application of other laws to #NIIMS

#HudumaNamba

There should be more special safeguards on the collection of children's data and this should have been dealt with in advance says witness @Bomu in response to cross-examination questions from GoK counsels

#HudumaNamba

It is not necessarily true that taking biometric data of children will reduce cases of child trafficking and child labor says witness @Bomu as cross-examination of the initial witness concludes

#hudumanamba

Lunch break in the #HudumaNamba case - proceedings resume at 2:30 with re-examination of the first witness by the petitioners

#HudumaNamba

Proceedings in the #HudumaNamba case about to resume (post-lunch) with re-examination of the petitioners' first witness

Counsel for GoK permitted 5 more minutes of cross-examination #HudumaNamba

Witness is asked if the government knowing where children are born and where they live is necessary - she says it is

Re-examination now begins - witness asked and agrees despite this information being necessary, it need not be in digital form

#HudumaNamba

First witness asked which areas are problematic for children. The response:

-No law that talks about collection of children’s data or issuing ID to children - Registration of Persons Act applies to citizens over the age of 18 years

#HudumaNamba

Response from first witness re: children continues:

-Need special protections for the data of all persons and especially children - must ask questions spelled out in Article 24 of the Constitution: Is it necessary? Are there alternative ways to collect the data?

#HudumaNamba

Witness made an Access to Information request to the Ministry of Interior to obtain more information about the #NIIMS systems and whether we are developing the technology ourselves

This was done around December 2018

So far, no response received
#HudumaNamba

Witness asked about issues around profiling of children. Her response:

-Children do not have capacity to consent

-#NIIMS would have a lot of information about children that could potentially be used to manipulate their behavior

Expert witness @Bomu states she fears #digitalID because it’s like during colonial times when land was taken - but now it’s our data being taken

Also, it would become the only way to receive services, which goes to the core of the constitution

#HudumaNamba #NIIMS

“Are you no longer a person in the eyes of the government if you don’t have a digital personality?” asks first witness for the petitioners

#HudumaNamba

Witness states when children reach the age of majority, they should be able to make decisions about what happens to their data that had been previously collected

#HudumaNamba

Question to first witness: “Whose duty is it to explore if there is a less intrusive means of collecting the data?”

Her response: the person who made the law, meaning the Executive that developed the draft and Parliament

#HudumaNamba

Re-examination of the petitioners’ first expert witness @bomu is complete

The petitioners have now called their second expert witness @iam_anandv

#HudumaNamba #NIIMS

Counsel for petitioners request to examine in chief or ask one question of the second witness prior to cross-examination due to the technical nature of his affidavit

GoK counsel opposes the application

#HudumaNamba

The court has stated that in the interest of a fair trial and based on the directions given in July (to rely on evidence presented in affidavits and prioritize cross-examination during the hearings), the request to examine the witness is declined

#HudumaNamba

Counsel for the petitioners @waikwawanyoike is introducing the expert witness @iam_anandv before cross-examination begins

@iam_anandv explains that he is from India and that he is a cyber-security researcher with expertise in forensic analysis of computer fraud

#HudumaNamba

Expert Anand has been involved in the design of #Digitalidentity systems and has done extensive technical analysis of India’s #Aadhaar

#HudumaNamba

The second expert witness adopts the evidence in his witness statement and cross-examination of the witness by counsel for GoK respondents will now begin

#HudumaNamba

“If I had been designing a car for a very long time, looking at a very high level sketch of another car, it would be possible to understand the components that went into the car” says second expert witness re: his experience on #Aadhaar in application to #NIIMS

#HudumaNamba

In this case, he is looking at the objective, architecture, and approach to harmonization/de-duplication of #NIIMS & #HudumaNamba as explained in GoK documents to deduce the #NIIMS design

The witness wrote in his statement a “centralized database will inevitably leak”

When asked if he can authoritatively say if #NIIMS is centralized, decentralized, or both, the witness answers it is “centralized and federated”

#HudumaNamba

Decentralized would mean no link - silos of data rather than a federated database that would connect information across databases via a unique identifier, explains the second expert witness

#HudumaNamba

Witness @iam_anandv shares if data collected under #NIIMS was done according to data minimization and there were no backlinks to functional databases, he would not have as many concerns

#HudumaNamba

Questions to @iam_anandv have largely focused on centralized vs decentralized database architectures and on de-duplication (ensuring one person does not have more than one entry, for example) #HudumaNamba

The counsel for the 5th respondent asks whether no matter how secure a database is, there will be someone trying to hack it

The witness agrees - it’s not a uniquely Kenyan problem, “it’s a uniquely global problem”

#HudumaNamba

“All governments take care to secure electronic data, but it is usually not sufficient” says second expert witness

#HudumaNamba #NIIMS

There are no publicly available documents that explain the technological architecture of #NIIMS

“Please learn from the mistakes of the #Aadhaar project so people can look at it and make it better” says witness @iam_anandv

#HudumaNamba

Final question for today “Are you telling the court that the project of #NIIMS is a waste of funds and useless?”

“Yes” says @iam_anandv

#HudumaNamba

The next counsel for the respondents expects to take around 1.5 hours to cross-examine witness @iam_anandv

The judges have adjourned #HudumaNamba proceedings for today, to begin again tomorrow at 10am