Why State must not snoop on Kenyans' online activities

The Bill that seeks to compel internet providers to track and report all user activity to the authorities will damage the government reputation irreparably. The movers of the Bill need to weigh the consequences of their proposition independent of the fear driving them.

On several occasions, the government itself has lamented how negative the citizens were to its performance. The general public reception of government initiatives is increasingly sceptical. The public trust in government has drastically dived south. The memories and wounds of the infamous abductions are still fresh. Why on earth would a Bill that targets individual internet usage preferences in this context interest the government?

I have no doubt whatsoever the government has quality intelligence sources to advise on such a move. But I do not see how anyone who is interested in national stability and building government reputation from where it stands today would be persuaded this is a logical law to enact. I would imagine what the government really needs at this point is positive press, strong public relations with its own citizens and any form of trust building. Are some quarters overzealous in their effort to protect the government? Let us have superior reasoning here.

First, already the Bill has drawn negative reaction because internet control is a sign of a government scared of its own shadow. Just pick any control where the government is on top of its agenda. You will see that the least bother for the government is tracking people's online consumption preferences. We have the NIS, among other security personnel, who are trained to track criminal online behaviour including cyber terrorism. The global fight against terrorism has largely succeeded because of these type of experts. I believe they are up to task of reining in local criminal elements who could be utilising online spaces for ill motives.

Second, there is no publicly empirical evidence to suggest that high access and control of private online information and consumer behaviour improves government performance. More specifically, such evidence would help the public understand the correlation between control of individual usage of internet and improved security, assuming this is the line the government is ultimately pursuing. If the public does not see a strong correlation, the movers of the Bill will be doing a great disservice to the current and future regimes. An apparent good is a dangerous goal to try achieve.

Third, for a government with such massive powers at its disposal, there are a million and one ways to engage its critics. The most reasonable one is to focus on government service delivery and put to shame the critics. People align themselves with a performing government very fast. Of course, create forums where critics run their narratives and run with your narrative. As long as Kenya is a democracy, plurality of ideas, visions, innovations and possible government systems are what citizens celebrate. If the tension of the two worldviews is run online, so be it.

Fourth, it will be worrying if online users more precisely online activism is engineered to sabotage the government of the day. There is a whole world of a difference between political activism of whatever magnitude and online communities that dig on government service delivery. The Bill seems to shut the window on the latter. That is not patriotism.

Fifth, violation of privacy rights is indeed a violation of fundamental human rights. What actually is the threat we are facing warranting this kind of radical surveillance? The online political mood, depending on which platforms you visit, could swing from one end to another. This is a very safe space where people do say anything and justly so. There is no publicly available data to suggest that online robust, hot political run ins amount to endangering national security. If there is such data it will be good to throw in the public for informed discussion. There are people who love horror movies. Yet, such audiences are not murderers.

Last, such a Bill may lead to profiling people based on their identities: Religion, race, tribe, territory and so forth. Is this all necessary? Really?

Dr Mokua is Executive Director of Loyola Centre for Media and Communication