Editor's Review

“What are the consequences of surrendering our biometric data to foreigners who now tell us that it is now their intellectual property?" Advocate Tom Macharia.

The hearing of the presidential petitions continued on Friday, September 2, at the Supreme Court as petitioners presented their oral submissions.

Advocate Tom Macharia, one of the lawyers representing petitioners, told the court that Kenya will soon have leaders made in Venezuela.

The lawyer claimed that after the court heard that some foreigners accessed the IEBC systems, the electoral agency ceded control of the process of determining the sovereign will of the people of Kenya to a foreign entity.

Macharia claimed that the foreign entity, Smartmatic International in this case, was holding the biometric data of Kenyans as its intellectual property.

Supreme Court proceedings at Milimani Law Courts.

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“We have been told here today that we had foreigners who have accessed our IT systems. And what has happened is that the IEBC ceded control of the process of determining the sovereign will of the people of Kenya to a foreign entity that now says that the data is their intellectual property that cannot be shared by Kenyans,” Macharia stated.

The lawyer wondered if the data had complied with the Data Protection Act claiming that there could be consequences.

“What are the consequences of surrendering our biometric data to foreigners who now tell us that it is now their intellectual property? We are going soon to have leaders made in Venezuela, not in Kenya.

The submission by Macharia comes after the Smartmatic International declined to open the IEBC servers after an order by the Supreme Court.