Safaricom seeking to monetise customer location data in its massive customer base

According to a local daily, Safaricom is seeking to pre-qualify suppliers of a location tracking and intelligence platform, and has invited bids for the service that would help the operator to build profiles of customers based on their locations and telephone usage. This could be signalling the telecoms firm’s plan to monetise data in its …

Tech CEO’s from Amazon, AT&T, IBM, Salesforce among 51 companies pushing congress for data privacy law

The chief executive officers (CEOs) of 51 tech companies including Amazon, AT&T, Dell, IBM, Qualcomm, SAP, Salesforce, Visa, Mastercard, JP Morgan Chase, State Farm, and Walmart have signed and sent an open letter to Congress leaders today, asking for a federal law on user data privacy to supersede the rising number of privacy laws that …

De-prioritised compliance: 50% of UK businesses not fully GDPR-compliant

As the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) legislation nears its 18 month anniversary, research by security software supplier Egress has suggested that 52% of UK businesses are not fully compliant with the rules, opening the door to severe penalties if they fall victim to a data breach. Egress – which polled 250 decision …

Privacy: Microsoft’s Windows 10 telemetry data collection under scrutiny for GDPR violation

Microsoft could face a GDPR penalty after the Netherlands’ data-protection office asked its Irish counterpart to investigate new aspects of Microsoft’s Windows 10 telemetry data collection. The case stems from the Dutch data-protection agency’s (DPA’s) findings in pre-GDPR 2017. At that time, the agency found that Microsoft didn’t tell Windows 10 Home and Pro users …

GDPR bites: proposed British Airways £183m record fine a wake-up call for other organisations

The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office has declared that it intends to fine British Airways a record total of £183.4m because of a data breach it suffered during the summer of 2018. The airline fell victim to a cyberattack that saw hackers gain access to personal information and credit card data of hundreds of thousands of its customers …

Only 10 of the 55 member states have signed the African convention on on Cyber Security and Personal Data Protection

In the age of GDPR privacy policy, the level of data protection regulations varies widely across the African continent. Some countries, such as Senegal, have rushed to adopt and implement regulations. But the majority have no legislation in place. And where efforts at regulations exist, experts are concerned that governments are primarily interested in giving …

UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office reports sharp increase in complaints after GDPR goes live

The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) told the Guardian it has seen a rise in breach notifications from organisations, as well as more data protection complaints following the activation of the law. The bulk of the response to the legislation has been a substantial number of complaints against high-profile companies, such as those against Facebook …