Has Safaricom allowed the National Intelligence Service to forward your calls illegally?
Currently most people are trying to figure out how they can protect their data. While we’re trying to protect our data and ensure that companies are not violating data privacy laws but this time the victim is Safaricom.
It seems as if there’s not a month or time that goes by when Safaricom has not been used by scammers. A post making rounds on social media is claiming that Safaricom has allowed the NIS to forward calls.
The information was spread on social media including WhatsApp and it said:
“Safaricom allows NIS to illegally forward your call to 0722188188 against your right to privacy… To check if your call has been forwarded dial *#62#”.
Once you dial the code *#62#, a message pops up informing you that you have been enrolled to call forwarding services. The post goes further to instruct readers to dial ##62# to remove forwards if they wish to get rid of the forwarded messages.
When you dial this code, another pop-up message appears showing that you opted out of the so-called services. So, it is quite easy for users to get convinced that the call notify services are actually legit when they really aren’t.
Investigation on the claims shows that in a 2017 post on Twitter Safaricom notifies its customers that the number 0722188188 is for Call Notify Service while 0722199199 diverts to Voicemail.