Gambler sues Safaricom over data leak –

The giant telecom company Safaricom has been sued for Sh115 trillion by a subscriber for allegedly breaching the data privacy of its 11.5 million consumers.

The subscriber has accused the mobile service provider company for exposing their sports betting history and biodata in a legal disputed filed at the High Court last week .

In his petition, Mr Benedict Kabugi claimed that he was approached by an individual only identified as Mr Mark who had in his possession the personal data of more than 11.5 million Safaricom subscribers, including his.

“The data, which the petitioner herein viewed personally, was specific to gamblers who had used their Safaricom mobile numbers to gamble on various betting platforms registered in Kenya,” says Benedict in his petition.

According to the suit, the data leaked allegedly contained specific identifying details of its consumers,  including: full names, their mobile phone numbers, gender, age, identity numbers, passport numbers as well as the total amounts gambled.

Further, the data also included the make and type of devices used by the subscribers as well as their location.

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Mr Kabugi says he notified Safaricom and the police about the data leak bust was instead taken to custody.

During the investigation into the data breach two Safaricom ICT employees Simon Billy Kinuthia and Brian Njoroge were arrested and charged for trying to obtain Sh300 million from the Safaricom by transferring privileged information on a subscriber from the company’s database and sharing it with an unauthorized person.

Mr Kabugi added that the charging of the two ICT employees was a confirmation that the Safaricom data was accessed, messed and interfered with.

This is the first time a law suit of this magnitude is being leveled against a mobile service provider in Kenya and could have far-reaching ramifications on Safaricom and its subscribers.

Article 31 of the Constitution states that:

“Every person has the right to privacy, which includes the right not to have: information relating to their family or private affairs unnecessarily required or revealed; or the privacy of their communications infringed.”

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