Local authorities are struggling to deal with several foreign digital lenders, who have on multiple occasions, been accused of harassment due to the absence of global data protection framework.
Complaints about these apps invading people’s privacy keep coming in, but the Data Commissioner Immaculate Kassait says the only international agreements out there deal with things like terrorism, money laundering and corruption.
“We have no global framework for handling digital lenders…The only existing framework is the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime, which mainly focuses on cybersecurity,” she stated.
Her office struggles to handle cases of digital lending apps harassing borrowers. To address the matter, the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC) has been seeking assistance from foreign governments to shut down apps that violate Kenya’s data privacy laws.
The focus is on multinational lenders operating in Kenya but storing their data on servers abroad, placing them beyond Kenya’s jurisdiction.
Complaints against digital lenders have steadily declined however, Kassait noted a few stubborn ones keep breaking the Data Protection Act continuously.
“We are exploring permanent solutions to address that issue…Some of the solutions, though complicated, involve working with the governments of the countries hosting these apps to see if they can shut them down permanently,” Kassait remarked.
A report from the Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK) for the year leading up to June 2024 revealed that nearly a third of all consumer complaints were tied to financial services.
Out of 668 complaints, 197 came from financial sector, with digital lenders ranking among the worst offenders.
A complaint submitted to CAK and later passed to the data protection office described how a digital lender took things a step too far by reaching out to a borrower’s employer after they missed a loan payment.
