Kenyan authorities gain access to parcel data

From September 20 onward, deliveries handled by Uber, Bolt, Glovo, and Little must include digital tracking that authorities, the Communications Authority of Kenya, Kenya Revenue Authority, and police, can access upon request, without needing a warrant.

The Communications Authority’s new 10-year courier licence compels these firms to record sender and recipient details, verify package contents, and hand that data over to regulators “upon request” whenever there’s suspicion of prohibited goods.

This measure is intended to stop the transportation of drugs, weapons, and stolen goods. In practice, it gives three state agencies access to the movement of ordinary citizens’ goods, with no judicial oversight built into the “on request” trigger.

Digital delivery firms will pay a Sh5,000 application fee, a Sh100,000 initial licence fee, and an annual operating fee of Sh100,000 or 0.4% of gross turnover, whichever is higher, plus a universal service levy of 0.5% of annual turnover.

These costs will ultimately be passed on to consumers through increased delivery charges, affecting the price of everything moved through these platforms, food, medicine, documents, small business stock.

However, there is a consumer-protection benefit: firms must now compensate customers for lost, delayed, or damaged goods within 90 days of a complaint, and customers gain a formal right to verify a rider’s identity and track parcels in real time.

The issue of proportionality and precedent arises, as the Postal Corporation of Kenya, the state-owned incumbent, operates under a different surveillance regime for the same activity.

Layering compliance costs and data-access mandates onto private couriers while a competing state entity is spared the same scrutiny raises concerns about fairness.

The Kenya Revenue Authority’s involvement also raises concerns, as ordinary parcel data will increasingly be used as a revenue-collection tool, blurring the line between regulating a courier sector and surveilling informal trade.

The firms will need to adapt to the new regulations, and they will likely pass on the costs to their customers.