Digital Rights and Data Privacy
Fintech Across Africa have become somewhat of a necessity across Africa providing the unbanked (and the banked) with vital financial services, enabling them to participate in the economy, on both the national, and international scale. However, with this immense potential to do good, also comes the ability to cause harm on an unprecedented scale if left unchecked - something we’ve already seen happen locally. In Kenya, Digital Credit Providers (DCPs), that provide micro-credit (small loans) to the users at the tap of a button, were quite notorious in abusing the customer trust and data available to them by engaging in unethical practices, especially with regard to how they used their customers’ data. How did this happen? As many of these unsuspecting users took out small loans on their mobile devices, many unknowingly granted these applications access to data stored on their devices. All would be fine, up until the point when you’d delay or miss a payment - that w...