Attorney-General Kihara Kariuki intends to appeal the high court decision that stopped the Huduma Number card rollout.
The AG in a notice of Appeal states that the government was dissatisfied with the judgment which was delivered on Thursday by Justice Jairus Ngaah.
“Take notice that the respondents being dissatisfied with the entire Judgment of the Justice Jairus Ngaah intends to appeal to the Court of Appeal against the entire Judgment,” reads the notice.
Justice Jairus Ngaah on Thursday halted the Huduma Number cards rollout saying that the state failed to ensure that the bill of rights including the right to privacy was respected and protected during the processing and roll out of the cards.
“I hereby quash the decision of 18th November 2020 to roll out Huduma Cards for being ultra vires section 31 of the Data Protection Act, 2019,” he ruled.
The judge ordered the state to conduct a data protection impact assessment in accordance with section 31 of the data protection act before processing of data.
The suit which had been filed by Katiba Institute and Yash Pal Ghai was against ICT CS Joe Mucheru, Interior CS Fred Matiangi and the Attorney General.
In the judgment, Justice Ngaah noted that the state had not appreciated the importance and extent of the data protection act with respect to the data collected under National Integrated Identity Management System- NIIMS.
“If they did, they would have given effect to section 31 of the data protection act and conducted a data impact assessment before processing personal data and rolling out the Huduma cards,” he said.
