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The Police Clearance Certificate, formerly referred to as Certificate of Good Conduct, will now be processed within a day from the initial 14 days after the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) upgraded its system.

The DCI boss Mohammed Amin has said this will effectively contribute to the clearance of the backlog while also matching the corresponding number of applications to those processed in a day.

While the old system was only able to store two million criminal records, the new system has a storage capacity of up to 10 million, according to the police headquarters.

DCI Amin on Tuesday presided over the signing of a contract between the DCI and M/S Idemia Southern and Eastern Africa Limited that will enable the upgrading of the Police Clearance Certificate system from the currently used Automated Palm and Fingerprint Identification System (APFIS) to Multi Biometric Identification System (MBIS).

Police headquarters said this upgrade comes as a response to mitigate legitimate concerns from members of the public regarding the delays experienced in the processing of the Police Clearance Certificates (PCC).

“The new system, MBIS will improve the processing speed of the certificates from the initial 14 days to one day, thus effectively contributing to the clearance of the backlog while also matching the corresponding number of applications to those processed in a day,” Amin said.

Reduce paperwork

The system is fully bolstered to support Livescans of the PCC applications in 52 Huduma Centres across the Country, at the DCI Headquarters and police stations.

This feature will tremendously reduce paperwork in the whole process of acquisition of the certificate.  

Amin affirmed his confidence that the new system will address the concerns arising from the delayed processing of the Police Clearance Certificates and further emphasised the directorate’s commitment to offer this service with utmost dedication.

He said applicants no longer need to book fingerprinting dates on the eCitizen portal but must select their preferred fingerprinting centres based on convenience.

More so, to avoid instances of return to sender, applicants are reminded to ensure that the ID card copies attached to the filled application forms are well duplicated, with attention to the thumbprint impression.

Special consideration

In November last year, the DCI recorded a backlog of over 600,000 applications and as a result, informed members of the public that the certificates would only be issued on special consideration.

The DCI admitted that the Principal Criminal Registrar was experiencing a huge backlog dating back to April last year as a result of system downtime.

In an effort to reduce the delays, only Kenyans who needed the certificate for overseas medical treatment, scholarships, and booked flights were given top priority.

“To ensure such needy cases and all delayed cases are promptly addressed, our officers at the DCI headquarters and Huduma Centers (DCI Desks) countrywide are sorting out and separately packaging such requests before submitting them for urgent processing,” the DCI said then.

“Further, the Forensic Fingerprint Identification Bureau (FFIB) officers are working round the clock, including on Saturdays and Sundays, to increase the throughput,” the DCI added.

In September last year, Interior CS, Kithure Kinduiki also met with DCI boss Mohamed Amin, to discuss the backlog in the issuance and processing of clearance certificates.