By Judith Gicobi
A lobbying organization has requested the court to order Safaricom to remove all the users images taken during the current Sim card registration process.
Safaricom’s decision to require photographs or biometric data as a prerequisite for Sim registration has been challenged in court by Katiba Institute and LSK. The move was deemed illegal.
The advocacy organizations believe that collecting images of their customers is illegal and violates the Kenya Information and Communication (Registration of SIM cards) Regulations 2015, as well as section 31 of the Data Protection Act, 2019. They are represented by lawyers Dudley Ochiel and Wanjeri Wangui.
They also want Safaricom to be prohibited from gathering users’ pictures or other biometric data as a condition of SIM card registration.
“And further to quash Safaricom’s threat to switch off subscribers who are registered and verified on the common platform *106#,” reads court documents.
On April 10, CA explained that the Kenya Information and Communications (Registration of SIM-cards) Regulations, 2015, which regulate subscriber registration and verification, “do not require users to provide images of themselves during registration,”
