The Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) Cabinet Secretary (CS), Joe Mucheru has directed the Communication Authority of Kenya (CA) to give a clear road map within the next seven days on how to train internet users and ensure that the Kenyan cyberspace is safe.
The CS noted that parents and families are straining to understand how to manage and control the way children are using the internet especially when it comes to harmful content.
Mucheru who was speaking during Sunday’s Covid-19 press briefing at Afya house said that with students now learning online, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) should ensure that children are protected online and parents are able to control how children use their devices
He thanked the media for the content they have been releasing especially in the area of education that is both being streamed by TV and radio and helping children occupied at this time of Covid while are at home.
Just last week, the Education Cabinet Secretary, Prof. George Magoha decried the use of technology which has seen incidences of children accessing pornography and other vices online.
Prof. Magoha had said he would lobby for the formation of a law that would block pornographic content to be accessed in the country due to the increase of teenage pregnancies in the country.
However, Mucheru said that increased technology has also come with its fair share of advantages especially for the youth who are working online.
“The government is in the process of training over 5,000 youths on how to go online and earn on digital jobs such as the Ajira programme,” Mucheru said.
The Ajira Digital Programme is being undertaken by Information Communication and Technology (ICT) ministry and will see the trainees access online job opportunities using their mobile phones, laptops or computers.
Data protection law, the CS said, is now in place and in the next two weeks he will be recruiting a data commissioner to ensure control of data. “We want to protect privacy but also ensure the public safety first
Kenya passed comprehensive data protection legislation, the Data Protection Act of 2019 which was assented to by the President of the Republic of Kenya on 08 November 2019 and brings into play comprehensive laws that protect the personal information of individuals.
The new law sets out restrictions on how personally identifiable data obtained by firms and government entities can be handled, stored and shared considering the way lack of a data privacy law was initially enormous gap in Kenya’s digital rights landscape
By Wangari Ndirangu
