# [IGF 2026 WS #230 AI, Digital Identity and Refugee Protection in Kenya](https://intgovforum.org/en/content/igf-2026-ws-230-ai-digital-identity-and-refugee-protection-in-kenya) ## Description A growing share of the systems determining whether forcibly displaced can prove who they are, receive assistance, open a bank account, or cross a border is now digital and automated. While digital technologies are a vital lifeline for displaced persons, systemic policy barriers have often deepened digital exclusion. For example, strict Know Your Customer (KYC) regulations frequently do not recognize refugee documentation. Furthermore, AI systems are increasingly deployed without sufficient human rights oversight, privacy protections. Kenya hosts over 800,000 refugees and asylum seekers and operates one of Africa’s most advanced digital economies. As the country shape the future of AI and Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), it is essential that refugees, asylum seekers, stateless persons, and host communities are not left behind. Kenya’s Shirika Plan offers a compelling example of how refugee inclusion can be advanced through national systems, digital transformation, and multistakeholder collaboration. At the same time, access to digital and AI technologies remains limited in refugee-hosting areas, underscoring the need for sound digital infrastructure in line with Kenya’s Digital Inclusion Strategy. UNHCR and the Government of Kenya have jointly issued biometric identity documents that unlock SIM registration, mobile money, banking, connectivity, and digital skills. Yet the same infrastructure carries risks of exclusion and data protection failures, making displaced populations a critical and live test of whether digital public infrastructure deserves public trust. Aligned with Government of Kenya priorities, UNHCR is supporting the establishment of AI and Digital Hubs, including in Kakuma, Turkana. This roundtable convenes government- the regulator, private sector, academia, and refugee-led organisations to examine what has worked, what has not, and how identity systems can be inclusive and safe by design. It will explore accountability, redress, and safeguards, while advancing the role of displaced people from data subjects to active contributors in an AI-enabled digital economy. ## Policy Question(s) 1. What is the status and practical reforms required for the digital identity and unique identifiers and their integration with key AI integrated digital economy enabling systems such as KYC, biometric identity systems for improved AI eligibility processes. 2. How are the refugee data protection needs reflected in the policy and legal frameworks to ensure accountability, redress, and safeguarding? 3. How can digital labour platforms and policies help refugees move from passive data subjects to active contributors in the AI integrated digital economy’s value chain in Kenya? ## Expected Outcomes **Expected Outputs:** (1) Key recommendations on practical reforms required for the digital identity and refugee unique identifiers, and their integration with key AI integrated digital economy such as KYC, biometric identity systems for improved AI eligibility processes. (2) Key recommendations on the policy and legal frameworks to ensure accountability, redress and safeguards of refugee data protection needs. ((3) at least two concrete follow-up commitments, for example, a technical exchange between national regulators and humanitarian data actors, or the inclusion of displacement scenarios in national AI governance consultations. **Expected Takeaways:** Evidence on what has worked and that which remains a work in progress in refugee digital inclusion in Kenya; a clearer view of the policy, legal and data protection questions raised digital identity; and direct exposure to refugee-led perspectives on AI governance. Findings will feed the Shirika Plan (and KISEDP and GISEDP) digital inclusion workstream and Kenya's national AI policy dialogue. ## Reference Document Reference Document ## Format Roundtable **Duration (minutes):** 60 **Format description:** Roundtable, 60 minutes. A roundtable removes the stage-and-audience hierarchy that routinely places institutions at the front and the rest of the people in the room. This session depends on government- regulator representatives, refugee-led organisation representatives, Civil Society, and technology companies speaking to each other as peers; the layout signals that intent and makes it physically possible. The 60 minutes is deliberate. With four speakers and a moderator, five-minute framing interventions leave more time for structured discussion with onsite and online participants, which is the ratio needed to generate the concrete recommendations set out under expected outcomes. This would reduce a multistakeholder exchange to sequential statements. The moderator will keep one open seat at the table so participants can join the discussion directly rather than only asking questions from the floor. ## Hybrid Format **Hybrid Format:** Online participants will be treated as a second room, not an overflow. The online moderator opens with a live poll and maintains a running speaking queue from the chat; after the framing interventions the onsite moderator alternates strictly between onsite and online contributions and states this rule at the outset. At least one speaker joins remotely by design, so that remote presence is normal rather than marginal. **Tools:** The Secretariat-provided platform with an actively moderated chat; Mentimeter for two live polls and an opening word cloud, projected in the room, which shapes the order of discussion; and a shared collaborative document where participants add recommendations in real time, which the rapporteur uses as raw material for the outcome note. **Accessibility:** live captioning, speakers briefed to describe visual material aloud, plain-language framing, and briefing notes circulated to speakers and registrants in advance. ## Organizers **Organizer 1:** Takeshi Moriyama, UNHCR **Organizer 2:** Diana Ondari, Government of Kenya: Department of Refugee Services **Organizer 3:** Drew Katie, UNHCR **Organizer 4:** Lensa Omune, UNHCR ## Speakers **Speaker 1:** Lisa Russell , Civil Society, African Group **Speaker 2:** Hubert Senga, Civil Society, African Group **Speaker 3:** Caroline Njuki, Intergovernmental Organization, Intergovernmental Organization **Speaker 4:** Evan Gichuki, Government, African Group **Speaker 5:** Benjamin Makai, Private Sector, African Group ## Moderator Takeshi Moriyama, Intergovernmental Organization, Intergovernmental Organization ## Online Moderator Takeshi Moriyama, Intergovernmental Organization, Intergovernmental Organization ## Rapporteur Takeshi Moriyama, Intergovernmental Organization, Intergovernmental Organization ## Participant Benefits What will participants gain from attending this session? ## SDGs 4.4 5.b 8.10 9.c 10.2 10.7 16.10 16.6 16.9 17.16 17.17 17.18