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Roll out of Unique Personal Identifier set for September


The government will start to roll out the Unique Personal Identifier (UPI) in September. UPI will see the scraping off of the counting of people during the national census and also give newborns in Kenya a distinct lifetime registration number.

Immigration Principal Secretary Prof Julius Bitok on Tuesday told delegates attending the ID4Africa’s augmented general meeting, that the smart card rollout was tied to the digitization of government services.

Prof Bitok said if everything goes according to plan the targeted date for the roll out – September 16, 2023 – also coincides with the global date set aside to mark milestones in digital identity.

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“As we reflect on UPI, we are very keen to identity September 16 as the day the government will be able to roll out some of the activities to support the UPI which will be the foundation for our smart identity,” said Bitok.

He was addressing the more than 2,000 delegates drawn from 90 countries who had attended the 7th Augmented General Meeting of the ID4Africa at the Kenya College of Insurance in South C, Nairobi.

He said the envisaged smart registration was intricately tied to the digitization of government services, adding that Kenyans will be able to easily access close to 5,000 State services after the launch.

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The model, which was borrowed from Estonia, will see the number issued immediately when a child is born, in a purely online exercise.

“The nurse will go to the e-citizen portal where they will key in the parent’s IDs, which will then populate all her details, at which point the Sh50 registration fee will be paid and the birth certificate containing the UPI will be generated,” Bitok said.

The UPI will be a code bearing more details of the child, including the gender. It is an upgrade of the current birth entry number that is issued manually during the registration of new births.

The three-day ID4Africa conference brings together governments, public institutions, international agencies, the civil society in Africa and leading innovation and technology firms in the world to discuss and showcase trends in developments in the registration industry.

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