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Data controllers and processors based in Kenya risk being blacklisted if they fail to register their businesses with the Data commissioner in an exercise set to begin on July 14, 2022.

Failure to register will lock them out of the lucrative local and international data businesses at a time the world is deeply running on data, hence referred to as the new oil.

Data controllers and processors are institutions or people who collect information about an individual and then decide what to do with it. It may include a company responsible for disposing of client information, a cloud provider that stores personal data or any service provider acting on your behalf with access to personal data of a customer or employee.

Enforce compliance

Data Commissioner Immaculate Kassait said the registration will be done electronically. A watermark engraved digital certificate containing an expiry date will be issued after 14 days to enable the commission to enforce compliance. “Without the certificate, you will not process within and without Kenya,” she said.

Kassait said the commission will also maintain a public register for all compliant entities, both private and public, locking out the rest from doing business. Speaking to Business Hub, Kassait said data is now a big movement in the world with processors and controllers seeking to protect their reputation from rogue firms. “Which customers want to come to you when they know their data is at risk. You can look at it from a strategic and reputation risk and even, profitability,” she said.

Frequent complaints have been logged by consumers, complaining of spamming mails, especially from gaming firms that inundate their inboxes with unsolicited information.

Kenya enacted the Data Protection Act in 2019, after President Uhuru Kenyatta launched the digital economic blueprint the same year in Rwanda. 

She said data players will pay a one of registration fee of between Sh4,000 and Sh30, 000, renewable biannually at Sh2,000, according to classifications.