"Data boss reveals sectors giving her office headaches about privacy"

Personal data protection has become a key concern for Kenyans and, at the centre of it all, the Office of Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC) has had to face players in sectors such as digital lenders, clubs and even schools, stamping its authority hard in an environment where businesses use personal information and get away with it...Data Commissioner Immaculate Kassait talks about interventions aimed at injecting sanity in internet, how her office deals with challenges of regulating more than a million enterprises holding Kenyans’ personal data and why, in the new era of Artificial Intelligence (AI)...

During the year, we did preliminary inspections (audits) on 38 digital lenders as a result of complaints we received. We had received more than 700 complaints concerning unethical practices by digital lenders and when you see a consistent complaint in a certain sector, you have to ask yourself, ‘What is the issue?’

We found out that some were unaware of what was required of them with regards to their users’ data protection. They had not factored it in their operations, in design and principle. The audits were part of their compliance requirements and we had conversations with the 38 to make them appreciate the importance of protecting users’ personal data....

Sectors from which we see a lot of concerns include the digital credit providers due to the high number of complaints we saw last year; the health sector because of the amount of people’s personal data it collects and keeps and also the education sector which keeps students’ personal information from pre-primary to university level.