ChebetLaw

Our Guest blogpost series: Data protection and WhatsApp groups, by Linet Owinga

Q I am a member of several social media groups, like WhatsApp and Facebook, where I share/give (and receive) personal information and data about me, my family, my connections, and generally my life. Are there legal limits to other members sharing what I have shared, basically to legally protect my personal stuff? A Kenya’s Data Protection Act (DPA) defines personal data processing to include several/various actions/acts performed with/on such data, including collecting, accessing, storing, retrieving, using, sharing (transmitting) disclosing etc. In principle, all data processing activities must be carried out in-keeping with data protection principles…
Simple Sample Employment Contract (compliant with Kenya Employment Law)

As Kenya’s employment laws make it mandatory for employers to provide all employees with written employment contracts, regardless of employee cadre, employers seeking to employ relatively low/semi/unskilled employees often need to balance between giving wordy and long-winded contracts on one hand, and ‘covering all the bases’ on the other. In addition, the chances of misunderstanding or lack of understanding altogether by semi or unskilled employees is high, exposing employers to future contract interpretation (should it arise) to the vagaries of contra-preferentem rule of interpretation. Here below we provide a one-pager sample/template that employers (corporates and…
Anti- Counterfeit Regulations of July 2021

The Anti-Counterfeit (Amendment) Regulations 2021 (“the 2021 Amendment Regulations”) were gazetted on 23rd July 2021. The 2021 Amendment Regulations substantially contain what was in the Draft regulations of 2020, which had been the subject of several discussions and public participation fora. Perhaps most notably, the 2021 Amendment Regulations introduce provisions that open the doors for foreigners (non-Kenyan), including foreign practitioners, to have an audience before the Anti Counterfeit Authority, a glaring shift from other IP laws, the Industrial Property Act (for registration and protection of patents, industrial designs, utility models and technovation certificates) and the…
Introduction of Customs Recordation for Imports in Kenya

The Anti-Counterfeit (Recordation) Regulations 2021 (“2021 Recordation Regulations”) have introduced a customs ‘recordation’ and a ‘customs watch’ regime of intellectual property rights in Kenya, targeted at more effective anti-counterfeit and anti-illicit trade measures at Kenya’s porous borders. Customs recordation or recordal is a process whereby owners of intellectual property rights, most commonly trade marks (brands) record their already protected/registered intellectual property rights with the customs authorities. The recordation processs is not an IP registration process, the latter being the mandate of the Registrar of Trade Marks (for trade marks and certification marks), the Kenya Industrial…
Kenya Data Protection Compliance Guide: The Privacy Principle

In our third article in our Data Protection law series, we discuss the principles of data protection and how organisations can implement them. Principles & Rights based legislation Those who are by now familiar with Kenya’s Data Protection Act of 2019 will appreciate that this law, like the EU’s GDPR. is inward looking; it requires organisations to assess their internal systems and procedures for purposes of complying with it. It is by and large rights and principles-based. Like our Constitution. Chapter 4 of Kenya’s Constitution set outs the ‘Bill of rights’. Among these Constitution-enshrined rights…
Kenya Data Protection Compliance Guide: Overview

With President Kenyatta’s nomination, in October 2020, of Ms Immaculate Kassait as Data Commissioner and communicating the nomination to the National Assembly for its approval, it appears to be only a matter of time before the office of the Data Protection Commissioner is staffed, and the Data Protection Act of 2019 operationalized. The office of the Data Protection Commissioner is a body corporate under the DP Act, headed by the Data Commissioner as its head and consisting of other staff appointed by the Data Commissioner. The Data Commissioner is responsible for overseeing the implementation and…
Kenya’s Recognition of Electronic Signatures

The use of electronic signatures is regulated by the Kenya Information and Communication Act, 1998 (“KICA”). KICA, under section 83P, recognizes the legality of ‘electronic signatures’ as well as ‘advanced electronic signatures.’ An advanced electronic signature as that which is: uniquely linked to the signatory; capable of identifying the signatory; created using means that the signatory can maintain under his sole control; and linked to the data to which it relates in such a manner that any subsequent change to the data is detectable. On the other hand, an electronic signature is data in electronic…
Trade Mark Trafficking? High Court Rules in Favour of Barclays Bank

In the High Court’s decision in ABSA Kenya Limited versus Barclays Bank here, the Court addressed itself to what amounts to ‘using’ a registered trade mark in Kenya. The decision and the Court’s analysis is important because of hitherto scanty decisions on the topic, despite the clear statutory provision in the law that requires a registered trade mark to be ‘used’. While removal/deregistration/cancellation applications for non-use are not common requests to the Registrar of Trade Marks, they are more likely to be raised in a defence to an action for trade mark infringement, as it…
Disney trade marked Hakuna Matata in the US, but unlikely in Kenya and East Africa

https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/analysis/ideas/How-US-firm-trademarked-the-hakuna-matata/4259414-5197122-o853diz/index.html

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