Kenyans rush to re-register SIM cards amid urgency calls as lawyers contemplate gag order

NAIROBI, Kenya, April 8-Long lines have been witnessed outside the outlets of major communication service providers as Kenyans rush to re-register their sim cards ahead of the April 15 deadline set by the Communications Authority of Kenya.

According to the Authority, all Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) cards have to be registered by the end of April lest Kenyans with unregistered lines lose them and telecommunications services suspended.

Kenyans who were queuing for re-registration at shops expressed fear of losing services should they remain unregistered.

“I am re-registering my number because I don’t have the money to pay for the fine. It is better to do it now rather than incurring unnecessary costs,”  Faith Owino told Capital Business.

Already, telecom firms have issued notices and reminders to their customers to re-register.

Former Law Society of Kenya Nelson Havi has urged Kenyans to boycott the directive even as he vowed legal action should Safaricom disconnect his line.

Dear @SafaricomPLC, I acknowledge your text to update my SIM Card registration to avoid disconnection. I understand the cost of update is Kshs 300. You have my ID Card with which the SIM Card was registered. I will take legal action against you, should my line be disconnected. pic.twitter.com/9mEWdloUF7

— Nelson Havi (@NelsonHavi) April 8, 2022

No Kenyan should be inconvenienced or put to unnecessary expense even for Kshs 1 by mobile phone services providers. It is time we said NO to this nonsense. Let us see if Safaricom will disconnect the over 10M subscribers if we all say NO this unlawful and unwarranted demand.

— Nelson Havi (@NelsonHavi) April 8, 2022

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The Kenya Human Rights Commission has warned that the move by the government compelling Kenyans to register their Sim Cards threatens the privacy rights of citizens.

The KHRC said Friday in a statement that the step taken by the Communications Authority of Kenya which would see Kenyans submit to have their photographs taken and retained is unlawful and promotes intrusive data harvesting.

“The government continues to wield pervasive power to invasively collect our personal data whereas we’ve witnessed previous data breaches that led to irregular sharing of our personal data with third parties e.g many Kenyans have been irregularly registered into political parties,” KHRC said.

Speaking to Capital FM,  Kevin Ondieko also said he would ignore the directive.

According to him, he already registered his line during the purchase of the sim card and sees no reason to do so again as the government already has their details.

” I don’t see any reason to waste my time repeating something I already did some time back. The government should use the details they already have since we registered our sim cards using our National Identification cards, ‘said Kevin, a resident in Nairobi.

According to Chiloba, those who fail to abide by the registration guidelines will face a six-month jail term or be fined Sh300,000.

Mobile network operators have been asked to speed up the data cleanup exercise as no more time will be added upon the expiry of the grace period.