NAIRAMETRICS
The Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) is currently investigating over 400 cases of privacy breaches involving digital lenders, popularly known as loan apps.
This is even as the data protection authority is seeking a ban or restriction on mobile numbers found to have been used by lenders to breach the privacy of their customers.
The Commission in its Annual Report 2023 released recently, noted that its ongoing investigations have revealed that “loan apps are overly intrusive”. This is, however, an already known fact considering the barrage of complaints by loan app users over the years.
- “They generally violate the principles of Data Protection and Privacy because they have access to contacts, pictures, messages, etc. of data subjects,” the Commission stated.
This indicated that despite an April 2023 policy introduced by Google banning loan apps from accessing photos and contacts of users, the practice has continued.
