Kenya ID verification API: national ID, Maisha Namba and IPRS record checks

Kenyan identifiers and formats

KRA PIN structure

• Character 1: A for individuals, P for non-individuals such as companies.
• Characters 2 to 10: nine digits.
• Character 11: a letter.

A personal onboarding flow that receives a PIN starting with P is looking at a company.

Response contents of a Kenya ID verification API

A parse result tells you whether a number is well formed. A verification response tells you whether the person in front of the camera owns it. deepidv runs one session: document capture with OCR and the AI document fraud check, face liveness with a 1:1 match to the document photo, the IPRS record check, PEP and sanctions screening, and an optional 1:N match that flags the same face behind a second account.

• One decision per session, with an outcome for every step, delivered by webhook (session.status.verified, session.status.rejected, session.status.failed).
• A reason for every non-pass outcome, separating malformed input, a record that was not found, a mismatch between document and record, and a registry that did not answer.
• A signed verification receipt with a UTC timestamp per step, anchored on Base L2 with zero personal data on chain, checkable at proof.deepidv.com.

Capturing Kenyan IDs

deepidv captures the second-generation ID, the Maisha Card and the Kenyan passport in a single shot and runs the AI document fraud check on each. Mobile money registration already ties SIMs to IDs, so phone signals such as SIM swap recency add a strong second factor.

IPRS record checks

The IPRS record confirms the ID number, name, date of birth and, where available, the photo. Kenya's Data Protection Act 2019 applies, supervised by the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner.

Liveness, face match and Kenyan rules

The Proceeds of Crime and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2009 and CBK guidelines require customer due diligence and ongoing monitoring, with suspicious transactions reported to the FRC. deepidv runs passive liveness, a face match and PEP and sanctions screening, and Arbiter drafts the STR for review.

How deepidv runs Kenya verification

deepidv is a verification engine and agentic compliance suite built from the ground up, without third-party verification APIs underneath. The engine is SOC 2, ISO 27001 and PCI DSS certified, and deepidv is a member of DIACC and the AVPA. Luna, the verification agent, builds and sends Kenya verification workflows from the platform or from any LLM through MCP. Arbiter, the compliance agent, maps the workflow to Central Bank of Kenya, POCAMLA 2009 requirements, monitors accounts after onboarding and drafts suspicious transaction reports for the Financial Reporting Centre (FRC) for your team to review.