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The Principal Secretary for Immigration and Citizen Services, Ambassador (Prof) Julius Bitok, has led a delegation of Kenyan officials to Montreal, Canada, for the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Public Key Directory (PKD) Ceremony dedicated to Kenya.
The PS was accompanied by Evelyn Cheluget, who is acting Director-General of Immigration Services.
This significant event involved the depositing of Kenya’s electronic signature for the e-Passport into the ICAO PKD database, a crucial step towards facilitating electronic validation of e-Passports globally. During the occasion, we had the privilege of paying a courtesy call to Mr. Juan Carlos Salazar, the Secretary-General of ICAO. Our discussion centered on Kenya’s active engagement in global civil aviation.
In attendance were Immaculate Wambua, the High Commissioner to Canada, and Ms. Charity Musila, Kenya’s Alternative Representative to ICAO, alongside other technical officers.
ICAO PKD is a database maintained by the ICAO which holds keys related to the authentication of e-passport information. The ICAO PKD is a central repository for exchanging the information required to authenticate electronic Machine-Readable Travel Documents (eMRTDs) such as ePassports. The security and facilitation advantages of e-Passports are grounded in the presence of an integrated closed-circuit chip which holds information of the holder and electronic security features.
The benefits of e-passports can only be realized when border control points are able to authenticate the chip. If the chip is not authenticated at border control, the e-Passport has little advantage over a traditional, non-electronic passport. Authentication of e-passport is the process of validating the authenticity and integrity of an e-Passport by verifying the digital signature on the chip.
To authenticate the e-Passport of a foreign traveler, the receiving State must have access to certain information from the issuing State. This would require states to exchange information through bilateral agreements. If bilateral agreements were to be used, the volume of information being exchanged would result in a highly complex and ineffective system. In recognition of this complexity, ICAO PKD provided a platform where states upload their information and download that of other States without going the bilateral way. Each State issuing an e-Passport establishes a single Country Signing Certification Authority (CSCA) as its national trust point in the context of e-Passports. The CSCA certificate containing the CSCA’s Public Key for verification of Document Signer Certificates (DSC) and other PKD contents must be distributed securely to ICAO and all Participants of PKD. The CSCA will be securely stored within the ICAO PKD System.
The Participating state representative shall be present at the Key Ceremony together with the senior officials of ICAO to witness the
import of the CSCA certificate into the secure PKD facilities at the ICAO Operations Centre. The process by which a CSCA is imported into the ICAO PKD is known as a key ceremony. These key ceremonies are done at the ICAO HQ in Montreal by the ICAO PKD office. The CSCA is updated every three to five years, but the formal ceremony is only done on initial submission; the subsequent updates are carried out by designated technical personnel of the state and ICAO PKD staff.
Kenya joined ICAO PKD in December 2022 and has up to 15 months from the joining data to have its certificate imported.
All the preliminary arrangements have been done, and ICAO is ready to receive Kenya for the ceremony on 13th February 2024.