Kenya - AI Code of Practice (DKS 3007:2024)

Overview

DKS 3007:2024 (Information technology — Artificial Intelligence — Code of Practice for AI Applications) was prepared by the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS) as a Draft Kenya Standard to provide recommended good practices for organisations that develop, provide or use AI systems. The draft is described as a 43‑page code of practice setting out approaches to establish trust (transparency, explainability, controllability), identifying engineering pitfalls and threats, and recommending technical and organisational methods to achieve availability, resilience, reliability, accuracy, safety, security and privacy in AI systems. KEBS notified the draft internationally to the WTO/TBT Committee (notification symbol G/TBT/N/KEN/1604). The draft was opened for public consultation on 2024-04-08 and the public consultation closed on 2024-06-13; the WTO notification listed a proposed adoption date of 2024-09-30. KEBS subsequently listed a published Kenya Standard product KS 3007:2025 (Information technology — Artificial Intelligence — Code of practice for AI Applications) on its standards webstore, indicating progression from the DKS draft to a published national standard. (See public notification and draft text: https://members.wto.org/crnattachments/2024/TBT/KEN/24_02705_00_e.pdf and KEBS webstore listing: https://webstore.kebs.org/index.php?product_id=19208&route=product%2Fproduct). Some third‑party report pages referencing the notification are also publicly available (for example: https://web.wtocenter.org.tw/en/Page/138/397590).

Definitions

The draft adopts and aligns terminology with existing ISO/IEC AI vocabulary (for example KS ISO/IEC 22989) and defines key terms used in the Code including 'AI system', 'provider', 'user', 'trustworthiness', 'risk', 'verification', 'validation' and 'monitoring' to ensure consistency across governance and technical recommendations. The Code references ISO/IEC concept and terminology standards as its definitional basis to promote interoperability of terms and to reduce ambiguity in governance and technical requirements. (Referenced summary: https://web.wtocenter.org.tw/en/Page/138/397590).

Governance and Institutional Framework

The draft recommends organisational governance arrangements to support the responsible development, deployment and lifecycle management of AI systems. Recommended elements include: senior management accountability for AI systems; designated AI risk owners or custodians; cross‑functional committees for AI oversight; processes for review and sign‑off of AI deployments; and integration with existing management systems such as information security and quality management. The draft encourages alignment with a management‑system approach (for example KS ISO/IEC 42001 where applicable) so that AI oversight and risk management are embedded in established organisational processes. The Code is framed as a non‑binding code of practice (guidance) rather than mandatory law; practical uptake will depend on voluntary adoption by organisations, incorporation into procurement or contractual requirements, or reference by sectoral regulators. (See KEBS notification materials and draft text: https://members.wto.org/crnattachments/2024/TBT/KEN/24_02705_00_e.pdf; secondary summary: https://web.wtocenter.org.tw/en/Page/138/397590).

Key Focus Areas

• Trustworthiness: recommendations to promote transparency, explainability and controllability of AI systems, enabling appropriate human oversight.
• Risk assessment and risk management: lifecycle risk identification, categorisation and mitigation aligned to an organisation’s context and the AI system’s risk profile.
• Data governance and privacy‑respecting design: requirements for data quality, provenance, lineage and protection measures that respect applicable data protection law.
• Verification, validation and testing: expectations for design‑time and run‑time testing, including performance testing, robustness testing, adversarial testing and stress testing.
• Documentation and accountability: model cards, technical documentation, data lineage records and governance artefacts to demonstrate due diligence and support traceability.
• Monitoring and performance evaluation: continuous monitoring and metrics to detect degradation, bias, safety issues or security incidents during operation.
• Security and resilience: recommendations to achieve availability, reliability, resilience and secure operation of AI systems.
• Incident response and redress: arrangements for incident detection, response, remediation and where appropriate user redress or escalation mechanisms.

Implementation Framework

The Code sets out non‑binding good practice across the AI lifecycle and is intended as a national reference that organisations of any size or type can adopt to support trustworthy AI implementations. Implementation expectations include documented governance arrangements; performed and recorded risk assessments; embedding data governance and privacy‑by‑design; applying verification and validation regimes; maintaining documentation such as model cards and data lineage; and establishing monitoring and incident response processes. The draft expressly positions itself as guidance rather than a mandatory technical regulation, intending to support quality and trustworthy AI across public and private sectors. KEBS later listed a published Kenya Standard product KS 3007:2025 on its standards webstore as the published national standard available for purchase, indicating the draft progressed to a published standard (see KEBS webstore: https://webstore.kebs.org/index.php?product_id=19208&route=product%2Fproduct). Public notification and draft materials were provided through the WTO notification process (see: https://members.wto.org/crnattachments/2024/TBT/KEN/24_02705_00_e.pdf).

Monitoring and Evaluation

The draft requires or recommends continuous monitoring and performance evaluation during operation, with specific emphasis on monitoring for accuracy, fairness, robustness, safety and security. It encourages organisations to define run‑time controls and metrics, log and retain operational data for auditing, and perform periodic reviews of model performance against expectations and risk profiles. Monitoring is linked to incident detection, incident response and remediation processes, and to mechanisms for corrective action, model retraining or retirement where performance has degraded or risks materialise. The Code therefore frames monitoring as an integral part of the AI lifecycle to detect emergent issues and to provide evidence of ongoing due diligence. (Summary references: https://web.wtocenter.org.tw/en/Page/138/397590).

Penalties, Liability, and Appeals

As a code of practice, DKS 3007:2024 does not itself prescribe statutory penalties, liability rules or an administrative appeals process. Enforcement in practice depends on voluntary uptake, incorporation into procurement or contractual requirements, or reference and adoption by sectoral regulators. If KEBS standards are incorporated into regulatory instruments, procurement rules or contractual terms, compliance expectations and any associated penalties or liabilities would then be determined by those instruments or contracts rather than by the Code itself.

Relationship to Other Instruments

The Code explicitly cross‑references multiple international AI and software‑quality standards (for example KS ISO/IEC 5339, KS ISO/IEC 22989, KS ISO/IEC 23894, KS ISO/IEC 42001 and SQuaRE quality models) and situates itself as national guidance aligned to global best practice. It is intended to complement Kenya’s legal framework such as the Data Protection Act (2019) and relevant ICT/cybersecurity legislation by providing technical and organisational guidance for AI systems. The document is designed to be used alongside other relevant national and international instruments where those instruments apply.

International Alignment

The draft references and maps to international instruments and frameworks such as ISO/IEC AI standards, the NIST AI Risk Management Framework (AI RMF) and the EU AI Act as either normative or informative references. KEBS notified the draft to the WTO/TBT Committee (notification symbol G/TBT/N/KEN/1604) as part of the international notification and comment process, and the draft materials were made available through the WTO notification/CRN attachment process. The Code aims to align national practice with recognised international approaches to AI governance, risk management, testing and assurance. (WTO notification and draft: https://members.wto.org/crnattachments/2024/TBT/KEN/24_02705_00_e.pdf; additional summary reporting: https://web.wtocenter.org.tw/en/Page/138/397590).

Implementation Timeline

Sources and References