Kenya to require users of public Wi-Fi to register with government

The head of Kenya's Communications Authority, Francis Wangusi, announced a new set of regulations on Tuesday aimed at combatting cybercrime in the country. The new rules would require all users of devices with wireless networking capability to register their devices with the Kenya Network Information Centre (KENIC)—much in the same way that some US states require registration of assault rifles and sex offenders.

Yesterday, in a speech before the annual general meeting of the Association of Regulators of Information and Communications for Eastern and Southern Africa (ARICEA), Wangusi said, “We will license KENIC to register device owners using their national identity cards and telephone numbers. The identity of a device will be known when it connects to Wi-Fi." He also said that the Communications Authority would set up a forensics laboratory within three months to "proactively monitor impending cybersecurity attacks, detect reactive cybercrime, and link up with the judiciary in the fight," according to a report from Kenya's Daily Nation.

The registry will enable Kenyan authorities to "be able to trace people using national identity cards that were registered and their phone numbers keyed in during registration" if the devices are associated with criminal activity on the Internet, Wangusi said. The regulation would apply to anyone connecting to a public Wi-Fi network. KENIC would maintain the database of devices; anyone connecting to a public network at a hotel, café, or other business would be required to register before accessing it. If businesses providing Wi-Fi fail to comply with the regulation, they could have their Internet services cut off.

Additionally, Wangusi announced that all Kenyan businesses will be required to host their websites within Kenya, purportedly to "avoid extra costs associated with sending data out to a different location and back again to the website owner," reported Daily Nation's Lilian Ochieng.

Kenya has just taken over the chair of ARICEA, which coordinates Internet and telecommunications policy across the members of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA). That puts Wangusi and the Communication Authority of Kenya in a position to press for similar Internet regulations in the other 20 member states in Africa's free trade area, which spans from Libya to Namibia.