Why disruption of GSM services is a matter of national security

The advent of Global System of Mobile (GSM) communication took the realm of communication to another level. This is an indisputable fact today. The innovations that came after GSMare equally mind boggling: the social media (Whatsapp, twitter, telegram & Instagram) and Mpesa.

Traditionally, security agencies like the military and police had the best, and most secure means of communications in most countries across the world.

These means of communication included,  but were not limited to; radio communication, satellite communication and Morse code communication.

The invention of GSM communication has challenged the preference for the traditional secure means of communication, not in the sense of it being secure, but from the point of its convenience.

In some remote areas of this country, mobile network may be more reliable than the secure means of communication in use by our security agencies.

Some of the innovations of GSM like WhatsApp assure their customers of an end to end encryption of their messages hence, that mode of communication appears secure, increasing its preference.

How then can the Government tap the services of GSMoperators in Kenya to boost our national security? First, the government needs to approach the matter through legislation.

This is the surest way of ensuring that mobile operators who are purely civilian entities & mostly after profit making, cooperate with the government and by extension securityagencies in ensuring that they provide crucial data on their clients whenever they’re of interest to security agencies, or suspected to have committed crimes.

Mobile operators

The second point revolves around the regulator of the mobile operators. The communications Authority of Kenya should have some input from national security organs as to what minimum requirements from the National Security agencies perspectives should mobile operators meet in order to guarantee the optimum cooperation of their needs. A good example of this is, CA should ensure that before mobile operators are allowed to operate in Kenya, they must provide an elaborate, practical and realistic business continuity plan/Emergency plan.

The company should clearly demonstrate how, incase of any disruption in their network, they plan to deal with the situation and ensure that services revert as soon as practically possible.

The third point is about entering into initial and periodical memorandum of understanding (MOU) and Service Level Agreement (SLA) between National security organs through their respective line ministries and the mobile serviceproviders to meet the national security demands.

Fourth, the government should consider, in the interest of national security, having one mobile operator like Telkom well-funded and equipped, but run by government to cater for National security demands and other national priorities.

Security demands

Multinational companies have a rigid-profit making strategy that may clash with national security demands, hence these companies may not be ready at times to heed securitydemands by the host countries.

Fifth, from a security perspective, we should discourage as much as practically possible the situation we are in, where there is one dominant player in the sector.

It's common sense that competition is good from a consumer point of view. It improves quality of goods and services and at the same time offers alternatives. This brings about flexibility and business continuity naturally.

Modern approach

Last, from a policy perspective in the national security policy formulation, mobile telephone operators, through the regulatory body, should know their role in a clear and distinctive manner.

This policy should be arrived at after a series of consultative meetings with stakeholders to ensure that each party knows its roles and responsibilities. 

The ICT Cabinet Secretary's order for a probe on the recent Safaricom outage in her systems, to me, appears to be a knee jerk reaction. The modern approach to security has taken a paradigm shift from a security approach (reactive) to risk approach (proactive).

Mr Cherutich is a retired military officer, a Certified SecurityManagement professional (CSMP), a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) & Principal Deputy Director Security, University of Nairobi.