The death of Albert Ojwang (31) in police custody has reignited public anger, especially among the youth, just as the country approaches the first anniversary of the historic June 25, 2024, protests, when Gen Z demonstrators stormed parliament over the Finance Bill. The moment is symbolic, and the timing has fuelled growing momentum for fresh demonstrations.

Albert’s case brings to the fore the issue of criminalisation of dissent and state surveillance being used to monitor activism rather than combat crime.  Ojwang was arrested and transported from Homa Bay to Nairobi on charges of publishing false information after the Deputy Inspector General, Eliud Lagat, made charges of being defamed on social media. What is interesting is that his X account, on which he made these comments, has been deactivated.

Heads of various organs have been summoned before the Senate and the National Assembly to respond to questions and other investigations are being carried out. Human rights organisations and ambassadors have called for justice. Meanwhile, Protests have already begun and are building up, leading to a renewed protest that may culminate on June 25th as Gen Zs call for the resignation of DIG police Lagat, who is largely perceived as behind the murder.

As the ‘Maandamano’ season loads yet again in Kenya, it is good to revisit the overlapping areas of data privacy and digital freedom. A post by the Prime Cabinet Secretary (CS) of Foreign Affairs, Musalia Mudavadi, on Monday, captures this very well. The CS sought to advise young Kenyan people by saying: “Do not count on hiding… Anonymity is a myth in this digital age. Security and data firms can trace every click, every post, back to you.”

The CS is right. Mobile Device Forensic technology has advanced beyond ‘Zero Day’ software, such as Pegasus developed by an Israeli company.  The spyware does not require any user intervention to infiltrate user devices to snoop on both IOS and Android devices. It is known as ‘Zero Day’ because it exploits vulnerabilities that the developer is unaware of and is so covert, that it leaves almost no trace. Pegasus has been used by governments for the surveillance of activists and journalists.

However, there are other tools by companies such as Cellebrite and Oxygen Forensics’, two of the world’s leading digital forensic companies that are used to extract and analyse data from digital devices and cloud services.

Cellebrite’s main tool is the Universal Forensic Extraction Device (UFED) used to extract data from locked and encrypted phones.

Oxygen Forensics on the other hand focuses on Deep data analysis, geolocation intelligence, and application-level forensics. It has developed a new feature of obtaining Addresses from Geo Coordinates which uses only the raw GPS (or other GNSS) coordinates extracted from the device’s data (e.g., photo EXIF, app databases, GPS logs) and then uses OpenStreetMap or Mapbox to resolve those points into street addresses. In other words, it can map addresses from GPS data and is highly accurate to a range of approximately 5 to 10 metres.

Both tools are complementary and are often used together to track individuals. If AI tools are thrown into the mix, they can aid by correlating GPS, Wi-Fi, and sensor data, to build a timeline of user movement, habits, or meetings using incomplete data.

State surveillance is no secret in Kenya. Amid the rising unrest, the Finance Bill 2025 includes a controversial allocation: KSh 150 million for the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) to acquire an Optimus 3.0 system to track social media activities.

So now the questions remain: Will Kenyans continue to be outspoken on their favourite platform knowing very well that intelligence agencies have silent access, and will Albert Ojwang be Kenya’s last martyr for freedom of speech?

Only time will tell.