Businessman Kabugi Ndung’u is suing Kenya’s giant telco Safaricom for allegedly leaking data for its 11.5 million gambling customers.
If this is true, it means Safaricom will be found guilty of breaching privacy. Benedict Kabugi Ndung’u has accused Safaricom of violating the data privacy of millions of people, which is a serious offence and could possibly destroy the giant telco. So what is the KSh. 115 trillion for? According to Mr. Kabugi the money will be divided into Ksh.10 million for each of the 11.5 million subscribers he also demands Ksh.100 million shillings for damages.
The petitioner wants the court to allow him to ask other victims to join him in his quest for justice. If others are enjoined in the case it means he can acquire enough evidence to have a solid case. Kabugi also wants the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) compelled to investigate and report the findings in court. Ndungu says that he was approached by individuals who apparently had personal data of 11.5 million gambling Safaricom subscribers.
Although our constitution has laws that protects the privacy of communication there’s still a lot of ambiguity in those laws. But despite the loose laws, Mr. Ndungu allegedly has a law suit that presents data which contains identifying details of subscribers, including full names, mobile phone numbers, gender, age, identity numbers, passport numbers as well as the total amounts gambled.
So far, two Safaricom employees were found guilty for trying to transfer privileged information on a subscriber from the company’s database and sharing it with an outsider.