Government to issue digital birth, death certificates from March 1

The government has announced that Kenyans will now be able to digitally access birth and death certificates from March 1, 2023.

Through a statement by Immigration and Citizen Services Principal Secretary Julius Bitok, the launch of online services to coincide with introduction of Unique Personal Identifier (UPI) to act as lifetime ID for newborns.

For the longest time, most Kenyans have been forced to travel to their areas of birth to apply and pick up their birth certificates.

Accessing such documents from the Immigration Ministry will go a long way in relieving obstacles that Kenyans have faced before when trying to access them.

Only a few documents such as passports can be applied for and picked using online channels.

However, many locals have been complaining about the long process of accessing the documents, and the ministry said that it did not have sufficient funds to purchase passport prints in a bid to fast-track printing.

Nonetheless, the move also goes hand in hand with the government’s plan to digitize most of its services.

ICT Cabinet Secretary Eliud Owalo had reiterated President Ruto’s goal of digitising at least 5,000 government services within the next six months, as stipulated in the Digital Super Highway document that was part of his campaign.

The ICT Ministry has since reported that 350 services have already been digitized while the government plans to digitise 5,000 services within six months.