Vodafone reassures customers of data security

Vodafone Ghana has rejected reports that it has been silent and acquiesced to government’s request for subscribers’ data thereby breaching customers’ privacy.

The company in a statement said the “information is a gross misrepresentation of the facts of the matter.”

This comes after a private legal practitioner petitioned Vodafone Ghana’s mother company, the Vodafone Group UK over allegations of privacy right violations.

According to Francis Kwarteng Arthur’s solicitors, Archbridge Solicitors, the petition was necessitated by the “nonchalant posturing” of Vodafone Ghana in the middle of the most extensive threat to privacy rights in Ghana’s history and one of the most extensive in the world.

This the company denied saying it “acted responsibly and transparently in abiding by the laws of Ghana and categorically rejects all claims that there has been a breach in the privacy rights of our valued customers.”

“We will always uphold the rule of law and comply with our legal and regulatory obligations including the Data Protection Act,” the statement said.

In March 2020, President Nana Akufo-Addo, passed an Executive Instrument (E.I. 63) that mandated the mobile network operators, including Vodafone Ghana to submit subscriber information known as call data records (CDRs) to the National Communications Authority (NCA).

 This formed part of the government’s contact tracing initiative in the ongoing fight against COVID-19. All the mobile network operators complied with the E.I63.

The Executive Instrument was subsequently challenged by a customer, who filed an application at the High Court for an injunction to stop all mobile network operators from sharing his data with the National Communications Authority (NCA).

Upon receipt of the injunction application, Vodafone Ghana immediately stopped the transmission of all subscriber data related to the contact tracing initiative, pending the court’s ruling on the case, scheduled for June 23, 2020.

BY TIMES REPORTER