Safaricom has apparently put in motion plans to protect the privacy of Lipa na M-pesa customers by hiding some of their details when they make payments to merchants.
The telecommunication company plans to implement this privacy measure by the end of June 2022. Only the customer’s first name and a few digits of the customer’s phone number will be displayed while making payments.
Presently, Lipa na M-pesa merchants have access to full customer details when they make payments, which has led to instances where merchants send unsolicited text messages to customers. This has led to many customer complaints which led Safaricom to create an opt out feature for unsolicited messages. However this deterrent has not worked and many merchants have continued to send messages to the annoyance.
This new development is timely and will lead to customers only receiving messages from merchants that they have opted into it increasing the privacy of the Lipa na M-pesa platform.
In 2021, millions of Kenyans found themselves registered as members of political parties without their consent. It is feared that some of the political parties the personal information about Kenyans from various platforms and registered them.
A survey by consultancy company Ernst & Young (EY) showed that 41 percent of firms transferred their clients’ data to third-party service providers. More than half, about 53 percent of these companies or 21.7 percent of firms captured in the EY survey did not seek the approval of their customers.