The government of Kenya has announced that all newborns will soon be given a special identification number that will be used in school and eventually serve as their national identity number.
The news was made on Monday by Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki, who also hinted that the Interior Ministry will begin digitising birth and death data on March 1, 2023.
He claimed that soon, infants will receive a Unique Personal Identifier (UPI) at birth. A person’s national ID, social security number, health insurance number, and finally their death certificate number will all be derived from it.
“It will be their Nemis (National Education Management Information System) number in school. When they turn 18, it will be the ID, NHIF, NSSF and will be the number of your death certificate,” he stated.
CS Kindiki was providing an update on the achievements of his ministry during the first 100 days of his administration. The government now aims to triple the number of existing passports from three million to ten million in the next five years, he claimed.
He claimed to have found a backlog of 1,698 citizenship applications spanning five years, of which 421 had been submitted since he assumed office.
