Smartmatic International Declines To Open Its Servers, Cites Security Concerns

NAIROBI, Kenya, Sept, 1 – Smartmatic International, the firm contracted by Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC)  to run the agency’s technological network during the 2022 General Election has declined to open the National Tallying Centre servers citing security concerns.

Amid the high-profile presidential petition case at the Supreme Court of Kenya, the firm in a letter to IEBC said that providing full access to servers hosting Form 34C would infringe its intellectual property rights.

The letter was dated August 31, 2022.

“As per your request regarding the provision of an image of NTC servers, we would like to clarify that such images contain software owned and copyrighted by Smartmatic and is thus IP protected. Providing full access would infringe our intellectual property rights,” read a section of the letter signed by F. Gunnik, the company’s managing director.

Lawyers representing Azimio La Umoja-One Kenya Alliance presidential candidate Raila Odinga said that the poll body refused to comply with the terms of the court.

The Supreme Court had granted them access to at least eight servers of the IEBC amid claims their systems were compromised. The team under supervision was expected to access and scrutinize its servers.

“IEBC failed to provide forensic images of all the servers. They provided limited access to server 5 and we observed a large number of deletions. We suspect the delay and non-compliance could be to delete vital data and when time runs out they may provide irrelevant information,” said Lawyer Phillip Murgor.

Smartmatic International which also supplied IEBC with the Kenya Integrated Elections Management System (Kiems) kits further noted that any third access to its servers, source code, and security features including transmission certificates and encryption keys, would render the system insecure.

It further said that it would put at risk elections in other countries that are using or have used its systems.

“Committed as we are to the transparency and integrity of Kenyan elections, we would like to recommend that IEBC makes available the following information: All corrected data related to the results transmission system and all results transmission system logs. This information should be sufficient to extensively audit the Results Transmission System and to verify that it worked properly,” read the letter.

In order to prove the accuracy of its results, they encouraged the poll body to provide supervised access to the results transmission systems from its headquarters domiciled at Anniversary Towers.