Kenyan techies headed for jail...
By: Rebecca Wanjiku
If the new Kenya Communications Amendment bill becomes law, all Kenyan techies and computer owners will have to pay a fine of shs 1 million, or risk a jail term or both if they are not licensed.
Why?
Section 86 of the KCA bill states that...
No person shall: Operate an electronic Certification system; Update a repository; Administer a sub-domain in the ccTLD - to do so requires a licence, or face the penalties.
Michuki Mwangi, the chief executive officer of KENIC, reckons that there are many Kenyan techies who have been infringing on this rule and will face the full force of the law once its promulgated.
In interrogating these issues, Michuki asks, what is a repository?
He argues that a repository could constitute a computer hard disk, mainly because the bill has not defined what a repository is.
"I have a self signed certificate, I create sub-domains and so many other Kenyans do. The government will have to give 32 million potential sub-domain users. That's a whole load of licences to issue," said Michuki.
Section 87 and 88 provide that:
The .KE registry and the Digital Certificate Registry need a licence.
Michuki reckons that the .KE model is globally recognized and indeed, South Africa wants to follow up but adds that the new law will open room for a subdivision of the registry, provided one can pay the licence.
For instance in South Africa, the .CO.ZA , .AC.ZA and other domains were operated by different entities and the South Africans are now trying to integrate registry operations under a single registry.
"It has the right intentions but just needs a bit of tweaking and rewording. The bill could have captured other areas of IT like local content matters were not well addressed," said Michuki.
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