The High Court has ordered the government to set up a clear framework to regulate mobile phone number deactivation and reassignment, giving a deadline of September 19 to ensure people’s digital identities are protected, particularly those in prison.
Justice Lawrence Mugambi, delivering the ruling virtually on Thursday, described mobile phone numbers as personal identifiers that link directly to private information. He emphasized that telecommunications companies cannot deactivate or hand over numbers without obtaining the explicit and verifiable consent of the original subscriber.
The matter arose from Constitutional Petition No. E290 of 2024, brought by two petitioners, including a long-term inmate, against the Attorney General and the Kenya Prisons Service.
The petition challenged the automatic deactivation and reassignment of numbers after 90 days of inactivity, highlighting the risk of exposing sensitive information such as banking messages, family communications, and other private digital data to unrelated users.
Justice Mugambi found that the current regulations under Legal Notice 90 of 2025, which allow mobile numbers to be recycled after periods of non-use, were “unreasonable and arbitrary.” He said these rules fail to account for legitimate reasons why a person may not use their phone, including incarceration, restricted student environments, or being overseas without roaming services.
The court underscored the dangers of uncontrolled recycling of mobile numbers.
“When mobile digital identity is lost through reallocation or recycling without interrogating the reasons behind the long period of non-use or inactivity, it creates an avenue for unauthorized disclosure of delicate information such as the person’s family or financial affairs to third parties,” the judgment read.
The ruling also emphasized the constitutional rights of prisoners under Article 51, noting that serving a sentence should not erase one’s digital identity.
“Automatic loss of the digital identity risks infringing on their right to privacy as their personal information linked and shared through digital identity may spill over to third parties without their consent or approval,” Justice Mugambi added.
The court directed the Attorney General to work with the Kenya Prisons Service, the Communications Authority of Kenya, and the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner to develop safeguards that prevent arbitrary deactivation and reassignment of numbers. Specifically, a regulatory system must ensure that prisoners’ mobile numbers are preserved during imprisonment, allowing them to retain or reclaim the same numbers upon release.
Additionally, technical protections must be introduced to prevent private data from being exposed when numbers are recycled.