40 Digital Credit Providers Listed For Alleged Data Breach Offence By Kenyan ODPC

The Kenyan Data Protection Commission (ODPC) has listed forty (40) Digital credit Providers (DCPs) in the East African nation over suspected personal data breach offences, among the listed are some of the racking DCPs in the country, including Branch and Tala.

The allegation amounts to a serious offence, as a data breach reveals confidential, protected and sensitive information, to persons who are not authorized to hold it.  Data breach similarly means persons who are not given permission can view and even share confidential information or file of a certain person or category of people.

After several complaints were submitted by members of the public, for exposing personal information, The 40 listed digital are to experience a preliminary documentary assessment.

According to the ODPC, it had received more than One thousand and thirty (1,030) complaints by the 30th of September 2022. It also received about Five hundred and fifty-five (555) complaints 54% of which were related to digital credit providers.

This event comes to light even as credit providers and regulated by the ordinances of the Central Bank of Kenya, this same institution that has stipulated tough laws against personal data breaches.

The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK), on the 19th of September 2022, announced that it had given licences to 10 DCPs in the country and was in the process of reviewing Two Hundred and Seventy-eighty (278) licence applications.