Proposed laws will shape the future of Kenya's e-commerce

What you need to know:

  • Kenya, with about 45,000 domains, compares poorly with South Africa, with about a million.
  • These Bills are partly inspired at a continental level by the African Union (AU) Cyber-security Convention. 
  • Specifically, the US government envisions a multi-stakeholder agency overseeing the Internet, as opposed to a UN-type body that would be heavily biased towards state agencies.

IIn concluding last week’s discussions on the Internet Governance Forum, we shall today look at how critical Internet infrastructure and e-commerce are managed currently and in future.

The government has been developing a National Optical Fibre Backbone (NOFBI) project over the last ten years, which involves inter-connecting all 47 counties through fibre cables, ensuring that the foundation for digital economies is well spread out across the country.

The NOFBI links are currently available in all the counties but have had numerous challenges, one being that the links do not go beyond county headquarters in most counties. Uptake is quite limited, therefore.

In addition, most private operators have ignored the infrastructure, preferring to lay their own fibre, which has led to duplicated infrastructure the cost of which will ultimately be borne by citizens.

Beyond physical connectivity, there are other ‘virtual connections' that make up Kenya’s critical internet infrastructure.  One is the Kenyan Internet Exchange Point (KE-IXP) hosted byTESPOK, an organisation that represents the interests of Kenya's telecommunications companies.

KE-IXP serves as the clearing house for domestic Internet traffic, ensuring that traffic originating from one local operator and destined for another isn’t routed over expensive international links, only to be directed back into the country.

This not only improves response times but also reduces costs of data transmission.

Now, to take advantage of the KE-IXP, service providers were encouraged to host their content locally, which brings us to the Country Code Top Level Domain (ccTLD), managed by theKenya Network Information Centre (KENIC), which is a multi-stakeholder organisation mandated to oversee the “dot.KE” internet identity.

E-COMMERCE LAW

If you are a local university in need of local Internet identity you would register “your_university_name.ac.ke” online, while if you were a local company, you would register “your_company_name.co.ke”, or “your_ngo_name.or.ke" if you were an NGO.

You don't need a company to register a domain, but can reserve your personal identity online by registering “your_personal_name.me.ke”. 

The number of local domains per capita is often used as a proxy to measure the digital vibrancy of an economy. Kenya, with about 45,000 domains,comparespoorly with South Africa, which has about a million domains and therefore has quite some room for improvement.

As a way of increasing confidence and encouraging provisioning and uptake of a local digital economy, Mr Victor Kyalo, the ICT Authority CEO, announced that the government has two critical bills under discussion, the Critical Infrastructure Protection Bill, and the E-Transaction Bill. 

According to the ICT Authority's web site, the Critical Infrastructure Protection Bill aims to promote the development and protection of critical infrastructure,  including telecommunication cables, distribution cabinets, towers and data centres, that support the digital economy.

The E-Transaction bill, currently under discussion at the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA), aims to spur regional electronic transactions by legally recognising amongst others, electronic records, digital signatures while defining the minimum technical requirements for mounting e-Business transactions. These Bills are partly inspired at a continental level by theAfrican Union (AU) Cyber-security Convention.

Whereas it is also under discussion, signatory member countries will be expected to domesticate this convention through local legislation.

In closing, participants were updated on the ongoingtransition roadmapthat seeks to have the United States hand over the oversight role it has over global critical internet resources. 

Specifically, the US government envisions a multi-stakeholder agency overseeing the Internet, as opposed to a UN-type body that would be heavily biased towards state agencies.

The Internet Governance discussions are set to continue regionally in Kampala (September 2015) and later on globally in Brazil (November 2015). Kenyans should participate in large numbers to help influence the direction the Internet is set to take.

Mr Walubengo is a lecturer at the Multimedia University of Kenya's Faculty of Computing and IT. Twitter:@jwalu email: [email protected]