No data protection laws in Kenya: How Kenyan police, CA, and Safaricom use mobile phones to track, capture suspects
phone data to track and capture suspects, raising significant privacy and
human rights concerns. The investigation highlights several key issues:
1. Unrestricted Access to Call Data: Kenyan security agencies have had
almost unrestricted access to mobile phone users’ call data records (CDRs)
and location data. This access has been facilitated by a data management
system embedded within Safaricom’s internal systems by a British software
company, Neural Technologies. This system allows real-time access to call
data, ostensibly for tracking suspects.
2. Privacy Violations and Legal Concerns: The investigation raises concerns
about the violation of privacy rights and the potential misuse of CDRs in
abductions and extrajudicial killings. Although Safaricom claims to protect
customer data and only release it with a court order, evidence suggests
that police can obtain this data without formal processes.
3. Irregularities in Data Provided to Courts: The article details instances
where Safaricom has provided incomplete or falsified CDRs in legal cases
involving disappearances or murders, potentially impeding justice. This
includes discrepancies in location data in cases like the disappearance of
Trevor Ndwiga Nyaga and the abduction of South Sudanese activists Samuel
Dong Luk and Idri Aggrey.
4. Use of Location Data for Targeting Operations: The investigation found
that police and intelligence agencies have used mobile phone location data
for operations that sometimes lead to abductions and killings without due
judicial process. This includes the use of predictive profiling tools
developed by Neural Technologies, which can map individuals’ movements and
associations, raising further human rights concerns.
5. International Implications: The article also touches on the involvement
of international entities like Vodafone, which holds a significant stake in
Safaricom, and the role of British intelligence in supporting Kenyan
operations. Despite these connections, there is no suggestion that these
companies are complicit in human rights violations.
Best Regards
______________________
Mwendwa Kivuva
www.linkedin.com/in/mwendwa-kivuva
