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"content": "decision making based on new evidence, but based on favouritism, other injustices and considerations. There are certain concerns I have with the Bill; perhaps it is because I have not interrogated it to the depth I would have liked to. This is the fact that right now we should be making laws for the future. At the moment, I know that statistics is a big deal, but data analytics is even bigger. This leads to issues of protection, anonymity, pseudo anonymity, flow of data between counties and the national government back and both and the integrity for such data that we must guard against. So, as we make these laws, it is progressive in its thinking and its objects, but let us risk mitigate around some of the undesired consequences of perhaps misuse of the data that may become available in counties. In the 2009 census, there were issues around legitimacy of certain data that our country produced. Therefore, as the Senate, it is our obligation to build mechanisms into our legislation, so that the data and statistics that we generate and how we use it, are legitimate, reliable and can stand the test of any scrutiny, so to speak. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I belong to the Committee on Information and Technology. The Data Protection Bill (Senate Bills No.16 of 2018) has already gone through the First Reading. Some of the issues that we are dealing with in the Committee with regard to ownership of data, for instance, as much as it is the counties that will have this data, we need to know: Who owns it? How is it dispensed? Who generates it? A lot of the legislation we make is making assumptions that data and statistics are generated by people but there is more to data generation than data generated by other sources like Apps and artificial intelligence. So, we need to make sure that our legislation links itself to these new ways of doing business. These include risks that may be inherent in the way we handle our data and statistics, the ownership, collection, protection and analysis. In addition, integrity must be included, protection issues must be looked at and the undesired consequences of some of these things that we must guard against. That said, this is a good Bill and I congratulate my sister, Sen. Farhiya, for bringing it and making sure that, as a starting point, we push our country and counties towards evidence based decision making, policy making, needs identification and resource allocation. Also, giving us a tool against which, we in the Senate, can use statistics not only as a baseline for our decisions to begin with, but also as measurement tools towards the desired goals both at intervals, mid-term and at the end of our projects. Therefore, I am happy with this Bill and I know that it gives us a good tool, even for fighting corruption that is based on decisions made out of the blue based on whims of certain people that are in power. With those few remarks, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I do not want to go to the other merits because they are many. In terms of the objects, ownership and means to dispense some of these issues, I know a consultative committee has been proposed. In the counties, nothing exist at the moment and I will be supportive of that as well, but more importantly, we should start pushing for our public service to work and do what it is supposed to do, as opposed to every legislation coming with its own layer of people to execute some of these things. That said, with regards to all the other aspects of this Bill, in terms of the reasons for it, the way it should be executed, the consultative approaches that have been proposed The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}