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The United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, Women and Digital ID in Kenya: A Decolonial Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 March 2022

Grace Mutung’u Open the ORCID record for Grace Mutung’u [Opens in a new window]
Grace Mutung’u*
Affiliation:
University of Nairobi, School of Law, Kenya
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Inspired by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the international development community is driving digital ID programmes in low and middle income countries (LMICs) such as Kenya. Kenya has had experience with state-issued identity registration such as that proposed in digital ID programmes for over a century. Identity registration has gendered impacts, stemming from the historical exclusion of women in the system, lack of recognition of their contribution to new uses of the system, as well as lack of engagement with women regarding remedies. Digital ID risks continuing and exacerbating these injustices, as it is based on the existing system. This article uses the ‘protect, respect, remedy’ framework of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights to analyse how decolonial approaches could be applied in digital ID to untangle it from colonial legacies, check the ever-increasing power of businesses involved in digital ID systems, and broaden intersectional understanding of human rights.

Keywords

decolonialitydigital IDKenyaSDG 16.9women
Type
Scholarly Article
Information
Business and Human Rights Journal , Volume 7 , Issue 1: Special Issue: From Formalism to Feminism: Gender, Business and Human Rights , February 2022 , pp. 117 - 133
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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137 Edwin Mutai, ‘State Releases Sh1.5bn for Safaricom’s Police Cameras Deal’, Business Daily (18 September 2020), https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/news/state-releases-sh1-5bn-for-safaricom-s-police-cameras-deal-2294414 (accessed 2 November 2021).

138 Privacy International, ‘Track, Capture, Kill: Inside Communications Surveillance and Counterterrorism in Kenya’ (2017), https://privacyinternational.org/sites/default/files/2017-10/track_capture_final.pdf (accessed 10 November 2021).

139 For example, a study on biometrics use in Europe noted that consent obtained for use of biometrics in identification advanced biometrics such as facial and emotional recognition calls on the European Parliament to separate definitions of biometrics and biometrics-based data in view of the wide uses that consent for use of biometrics may be put. European Parliament, ‘Biometric Recognition and Behavioural Detection’ (2021), https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2021/697131/IPOL_BRI(2021)697131_EN.pdf (accessed 10 November 2021).

140 March, Hug, ‘Smart Cities’ in Kothari, Ashish et al (eds.), Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary (New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2019) 68 Google Scholar; Michael Kwet, ‘Digital Colonialism: US Empire and the New Imperialism in the Global South’ (2019) 60 Race & Class 3.

141 Kwet, note 140.

142 Registration of Persons Act, note 54, section 9A(3).

143 Parliament of Kenya, ‘Petition: Lack of Access to Citizen Registration Services by Residents of Garissa and Wajir Counties’ (2021), http://parliament.go.ke/sites/default/files/2021-03/Hansard%20Report%20-%20Tuesday%2C%2023rd%20March%202021%20%28P%29.pdf (accessed 10 November 2021) 2; Parliament of Kenya, ‘Motion on Establishment of Database Centres in Civil Registration Centres in the Country’ (2020), http://www.parliament.go.ke/sites/default/files/2020-11/Hansard%20Report%20-%20Thursday%2C%205th%20November%202020%20%28A%29.pdf (accessed 2 November 2021); Nubian Rights Forum and 2 Others v Attorney-General and 6 Others; Child Welfare Society and 8 Others (Interested Parties), note 54.

144 Data Protection Act, note 92, sections 26 and 27.

145 Ibid, 30 and 51.

146 Ibid, 27.

147 Ibid, 31.

148 Black Sash, ‘Submission to UN General Assembly on Digital Technology, Social Protection and Human Rights’ (2019), http://www.blacksash.org.za/images/Submissions/170519_UN_Submission_Final.pdf (accessed 10 November 2021) para 2.4.

149 Ibid.

150 Bonita Meyersfeld and Khuraisha Patel, ‘Spotlight on Investors’ Lack of Oversight in Social Grants Fiasco’, Business Live (12 April 2017), https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/2017-04-12-spotlight-on-investors-lack-of-oversight-in-social-grants-fiasco/ (accessed 10 November 2021).

151 Human Rights Council, ‘Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework’, A/HRC/17/31 (21 March 2011) principle 18.

152 Umurerwa Rutazibwa, note 95.

153 Tamale, note 1, 343.