Kenya moves to institutionalize trust as digital government services expands

Lawmakers in Kenya have consented to the setting up of a dedicated body dubbed the National Cybersecurity Agency (NCSA) that will strengthen the security and trust ecosystem of the country’s digital infrastructure.

The move is seen not only as an effort to consolidate national digital infrastructure security governance, but also the institutionalisation of digital trust, given the East African nation’s growing digital economy. The country is part of a three-nation pilot to test digital ID for cross-border trade within the framework of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area agreement (AfCFTA).

The development comes as the Kenyan government continues to expand its digital ID coverage foothold, with the Ministry of Interior announcing that more than 42 million identity records were digitized in the 2025/2026 fiscal year.

NCSA to boost sovereign defense efforts

On Monday, the Ministry of Interior and National Administration, in a statement, welcomed the move by parliament to greenlight the National Cybersecurity Agency Order, 2026, issued by President William Ruto recently.

With a maturing digital economy thanks to the expansion of the Maisha Namba digital ID system and other digital public infrastructure, the government is recognizing that trust in these systems requires a dedicated and sufficiently empowered regulator. The coming of the NCSA therefore marks a major shift from reactive and siloed cyber defense efforts to a proactive and centralized command structure for better protecting the country’s digital sovereignty.

The ministry statement cited a wide range of cyber threats which are throwing digital transactions into peril, especially with the rising wave of those that are aided and abetted by generative AI.

At the ID4Africa AGM in Abidjan in May, experts discussed growing cybersecurity threats in the GenAI era, and agreed that DPI has to be treated as critical information infrastructure that requires a robust sovereign cyber defense.

The establishment of the NCSA, the ministry said, is “a significant step in Kenya’s efforts to secure its rapidly expanding digital ecosystem and safeguard critical information infrastructure that supports national security, public service delivery, economic activity and the daily lives of millions of Kenyans.”

It added that the growth of the country’s digital economy, driven principally by progress in aspects like mobile money, digital financial services, e-government platforms, telecommunications, health information systems, education technology and online commerce, have also come with enormous risks which the government must firmly square up to.

“The Agency has, therefore, been established to provide a coordinated national framework for preventing, detecting, responding to and recovering from cyber threats,” the ministry noted, adding that it will serve as the central technical and regulatory institution on cybersecurity matters and work closely with government agencies, security institutions, regulators, industry players, academia, development partners and international cybersecurity networks.

Among other things, the body is also expected to promote research, innovation, and skills development while building collaboration and partnerships to strengthen resilience.

The Kenya move is in line with a global trend where nations are increasingly creating standalone cyber agencies to protect their critical digital public infrastructure.

Burkina Faso, early this year, unveiled a similar body with the responsibility to supervise the national backbone network, secure the country’s cyberspace, oversee the operation of data centers, as well as facilitate the maintenance and protection of the state’s critical digital infrastructure.

1.5 million cards produced in five months

In a briefing reported by The Star, Principal Secretary for Immigration and Citizen Services, Dr Belio Kipsang, is quoted as explaining that the move to digitize 42 million birth registration records is consistent with ongoing efforts by the government to modernize civil registration and lay a solid foundational identity template for digital transformation.

According to Kipsang, the results re the fruit of efforts deployed during the first five months of the year to enhance access to digital ID, with more than 1.5 million cards produced within that period.

Other reforms, the official explained, included streamlining passport processes, increasing the number of services on the e-Citizen platform to more than 26,000, and improvements to the management of refugees by introducing sustainable inclusion model.

The identity reforms in Kenya reflect those in a number of other countries such as Ghana where authorities aim to expand identity coverage in order to simplify access to services.

Article Topics

Africa  |  biometrics  |  birth registration  |  cybersecurity  |  digital ID  |  digital sovereignty  |  identity management  |  Kenya