No data protection laws in Kenya: How Kenyan police, CA, and Safaricom use mobile phones to track, capture suspects

Currently, Safaricom collects and stores personal data, but it is not
limited to:

“Your identity and SIM-card registration information, including your name,
photograph, address, location, phone number, identity document type and
number, date of birth, email address, age, gender, and mobile number
portability records,” as per Safaricom Data Privacy Statement and much more.

When it comes to the disclosure of one’s information, Safaricom does so
under applicable laws and regulations.

However, in Disclosure of Information subsection 4.2(h), the telco says it
can disclose one’s information to “Any other person that we deem
legitimately necessary to share the data with.”
www.safaricom.co.ke/data-privacy-statements

Best regards,

Neema Mujesia,
Communications Officer, KICTANet.

On Tue, 29 Oct 2024, 09:59 bwire maxwell via KICTANet, <
[email protected]> wrote:

> Hello, I am looking forward to working with you, teach me much about data
> tracking such that I will not be lured by conmen again, I do feel bitter
> that I lost more than Ksh.20,000 over fraud. I reported the matter to a
> certain dci, but no action has been taken, they ended up telling me that it
> could be much more costly. I could have spent more than the one that had
> already lost, because they were supposed to fuel the vehicle to look for
> the suspect. And at that moment they had no vehicle that was being used by
> their boss.
>
> regard vincent.
>
> On Mon, Oct 28, 2024 at 10:55 PM Mwendwa Kivuva via KICTANet <
> [email protected]> wrote:
>
>> The article from Nation reveals how Kenyan police have been using mobile
>> 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.
>>
>>
>> nation.africa/kenya/news/exclusive-how-kenyan-police-use-mobile-phones-to-track-capture-suspects-4804416#story
>>
>>
>> Best Regards
>> ______________________
>> Mwendwa Kivuva
>> www.linkedin.com/in/mwendwa-kivuva
>>