Smartmatic declines to give Raila full access to IEBC servers

During a pre-trial conference on Tuesday, the Supreme Court ordered the electoral body to, among other things, grant the petitioners access to any server used to capture images of Forms 34C.

In a letter on Thursday, Smartmatic's Managing Director F. Gunnick noted that providing full access to the servers would be an infringement on their property rights.

Gunnick added that allowing access to their information to a third party would also render it insecure for any future use. 

“Providing full access would infringe our intellectual property rights,” reads the statement from Smartmatic. 

“Providing third parties access to our source code, and security features including transmission certificates and encrypted keys would render the system insecure – as it is today – for any future use in Kenya or anywhere else in the world. In addition to violating our IP rights, this would also jeopardize elections in other countries that are using or have used our systems," it further stated. 

Gunnick however recommended that the IEBC makes all "data related to the Results Transmission System and the Results Transmission System logs" available which he says should be sufficient to audit the results transmission and verify that it worked properly.

The Smartmatic boss further defended the accuracy of the results highlighting that "all physical tally reports were available" to everyone including political parties and election observers who were able to tally the results independently.

Meanwhile the IEBC on Wednesday, in a submission made by Lawyer Eric Gumbo, explained that the court remains apprehensive about granting the petitioners access to its servers for forensic imaging over concerns it says could interfere with its future operations.

Should the Supreme Court nullify the results of the presidential polls and order a fresh election, Gumbo argued, the IEBC will not be able to conduct the exercise since it will allegedly have lost full access to its servers.