Expose of telcos’ deadly impunity shocking
The key brief of the national security agencies is to ensure law and order and protect the people and their property against internal and external threats. The resources at their disposal are meant to enable them to efficiently carry out their responsibilities.
It is, however, disappointing that in many cases, the expertise, efficiency and capacity of these agencies is used against the very people they are meant to protect. Quite shocking, for example, is the revelation on how police have been using mobile phone data to track down and capture suspects in flagrant violation of their privacy and rights.
Our exclusive investigation has exposed how police access mobile phone customers’ sensitive call data records. Even more worrying is the expose on how the telecommunication firms sometimes frustrate justice whenever security agencies are implicated in murder and enforced disappearances.
The security agencies have virtually unfettered access to mobile phone customers’ sensitive call data records. They use location data to track and capture suspects. The telcos have abetted the abductions and extrajudicial killings during the recent Gen Z demonstrations and before. It is ironical that the firms that provide such an essential service have also been impeding the pursuit of justice.
Safaricom has, of course, denied breaching its customers’ right to privacy. However, extrajudicial killings and disappearances are on the rise again. Police require a court order to obtain information from mobile firms, but often do without following the formal process. Police and intelligence agencies have also used customer data and location records for kill-or-capture operations.
But to their credit, the telcos have also played a key role in the fight against terrorism by enabling the tracking of the culprits.
However, these are shocking revelations about the goings on in a country that cherishes the individual rights and freedoms guaranteed by the 2010 Constitution. The government must ensure that security agencies do not needlessly violate Kenyans’ right to privacy even as they investigate crimes.
