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Smartmatic International, the technology firm which was contracted by Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to facilitate electronic voter identification and results transmission, has refused to grant full access to its servers that host form 34C.

In a letter dated Thursday, September 1, the firm decried that providing full access to the images of the NTC servers as requested by the Supreme Court would infringe their intellectual property rights.

“As per your request for the provision of Image of NTC Server (s), we would like to clarify that such images contain software owned and copyrighted by Smartmatic and is thus IP protected. Providing full access would infringe our intellectual property rights,” the letter reads in parts.

The IT firm further defended that providing access to third parties will render their system insecure thus jeopardising elections in other countries that have used or are using their systems.

“Furthermore, providing third parties access to our source code, and security features including transmission certificates and encryption keys would render the system insecure as it is today for any future use in Kenya or anywhere else in the world. In addition to violating our IP rights, this would also jeopardize elections in other countries that are using or have used our systems,” the letter reads in parts.

Petitioners demanded access to servers

The letter comes in response to a court order served to (IEBC) demanding that the commission grants the petitioners supervised access to any server used to capture images of Form 34C at the tallying centre in Bomas of Kenya.

“That IEBC is compelled to give the applicants supervised access to any server(s) at the National Tallying Centre for storing and transmitting voting information, which is forensically imaged to capture a copy of the Form 34C which is the total votes cast,” the court orders read.

Azimio presidential flag bearer Raila Odinga and his running mate Martha Karua claim IEBC systems were infiltrated and results changed. The duo wants the declaration of William Ruto as President-elect by IEBC Chairperson Wafula Chebukati quashed.