First Youth Internet Governance Forum Kenya held ahead of the IGF Kenyan Chapter

As part of the Internet Governance Forum Week, Kenyan Chapter, Watoto Watch Network in partnership with Safaricom, Communications Authority of Kenya and Facebook have held the first Youth Internet Governance Forum Kenyan Chapter.

The event was held at Daystar University and was attended by other key sector players, including representatives from Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANET) as well as Kenya Network Information Centre (KENIC). The event also attracted students from different schools across Nairobi County including Makini School, Nairobi School, St Marys and Nova Academy.

Among the key issues brought up during the sessions were around child online protection and Cyber security from a Government, ISP and Developers perspective. The event also saw the students engage widely on emerging technology trends in the Kenyan Market as well ICT accessibility and Affordability.

Highlighting some of the measures put in place by CA to ensure Internet safety Mr. Joseph Nzano from the Communications Authority of Kenya said that the Authority had put in place a National Computer Incident Response Team-Coordination Centre (National- KE-CIRT/CC), a center that offers technical advisories on cybersecurity matters to relevant stakeholders nationally and coordinates cyber incident responses I collaboration with relevant actors locally regionally and internationally.

In order to enhance Kenya’s National cybercrime management framework and keep abreast with the evolving technology, Mr Nzano also added that Kenya had deployed national Public Key Infrastructure, which is a system that facilitates the Authority’s licensing of Electronic Certification Service Providers.

Through the system, the regulator is able to create store and distribute digital certificates which are used to verify that a particular public key belongs to a certain key.

Speaking at the same event Facebook’s Akua Gyekye also said that Facebook was putting into place measures to protect its over 2 billion users globally, Seven million of whom are Kenyans from any cyber related crimes.

“We take safety quite seriously at Facebook as we use Facebook to connect, learn and share. We provide a platform for people to create content as we do not create content ourselves therefore safety being quite key. We are trying to make the internet quite safe by enhancing our security measures every day. That is why we introduced the Facebook Privacy Basics some time back,” she said.

She however cautioned that people should take a little more time to check out the Facebook Settings to ensure they know whom and what they are sharing their information with.

This Year’s Kenya Internet Governance Forum (IGF) is scheduled for Thursday July 6, 2017 at the Laico Regency Hotel in Nairobi under the theme “Internet and Elections” ahead of theGeneral Elections slated for August 8, 2017. The outcomes are expected to feed into the Global IGF slated for December 2017 in Geneva, Switzerland under the global theme of “Shape Your Digital Future!.”

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Internet Governance Forum since its inception in 2006. The IGF is a forum for multi-stakeholder dialogue on public policy issues related to key elements of Internet governance issues, such as the Internet’s sustainability, robustness, security, stability and development. The United Nations Secretary-General formally announced the establishment of the IGF in July 2006 and the first meeting was convened in October/November 2006.