For SIM card registration to succeed in curbing breaches and crime, you need to put laws in place to stop the authority from using my data wrongly. Why should I go to a phone company and put down my ID card, Birth details, residential details and other very private details without data laws? We informed the ministry of communication that the best thing is to enact a law which will cushion my data.
The exercise is now being forced on kenyans after a roadside declaration by Kibaki. There is no data privacy law to support the directive and it is now basically voluntary. I say, no one will dare terminate or de-activate your line if it is not registered. I REPEAT. NO ONE WILL DE-ACTIVATE your line. If the telephone companies try to implement it, the uptake of mobile phone service will go down very fast and so the first enemy of the exercise will be the phone companies. And the since the exercise is not backed by any law, no one can be forced to register their phones unless we are now being ruled by presidential decrees.
I think that we need to have clear guidelines on this.
Do we remember that in early 2000 we had problems with many employees from Safaricom and Kencell being used to tap into communications of Kenyans? Do you remember that it was very hard for the employees to maintain relationships because many could tap into our communication and listen to us talking to other women or men for the ladies?
Why are we being forced with a directive while we know that the privacy of our data is not assured? Who will protect my data after I submit it to the telephone companies? Do you know that all phone numbers reside with CCK. And the security of my data at CCK will depend on whether I am friendly to the regime in power?
I think that we must protest the exercise and stop it until we have a data security and privacy law since anyone can easily hack into my bank, tax or personal privacy just by having the details required by CCK for registration of my line.
I wont register my two lines. Let me see if they will deactivate it. Michael Murungi who is a lawyer specialising in communciation laws did a very thorough analysis on this post.
Again, who sends hate messages? Are they ordinary people? Do you know how much it costs to have a bulk sms software and send many smses to different phone numbers? The softwares are availeable through the internet and they are some of the cheapest out there.
I am not against the exercise. I just need a law to protect me from Telcos and the government misusing my private information. Dont argue that my private information already reside with KRA, CBK and the banks. NO. They are well protected by various laws meant for the respective sectors. None of the laws covers cyber or Telephone communications.
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