NITDA fines online lending platform N10m

The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has imposed a N10 million fine among other sanctions on Soko Lending Company Limited (Soko Loans), an online lending platform, for privacy invasion.

This action was taken after receiving series of complaints against the company for unauthorized disclosures, failure to protect customers’ personal data and defamation of character and for carrying out the necessary due diligence as enshrined in the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation, NDPR.
The NDPR is Nigeria’s principal data protection legislation.

The Head, Corporate Affairs and External Relations, NITDA, Mrs Hadiza Umar in a statement issued on 17th August, in Abuja explained that one of such complaints was filed by Bloomgate Solicitors on behalf of its client, the data subject, was received on Monday, November 11,  2019.

NITDA, as part of its due diligence process, commenced investigation over the alleged infractions of the provisions of the NDPR.

Soko Loans grants its customers uncollateralised loans and requires a loanee to download its mobile application on their phone and activate a direct debit in the company’s favour. The app gains access to the loanee’s phone contacts.

According to one of the complainants, when he failed to meet up with his repayment obligations due to insufficient credit in his account on the date the direct debit was to take effect, the company unilaterally sent privacy-invading messages to the complainant’s contacts.

Investigation revealed that complainants’ contacts who were neither parties to the loan transaction nor consented to the processing of their data have confirmed the receipt of such messages. The Agency made stringent efforts to get Soko Loan to change the unethical practice but to no avail.

After the Agency’s investigation team secured a lien order on one of the company’s accounts by which it could come up with privacy-enhancing solutions for its business model, Soko Loan decided to rebrand and directs its customers to pay into its other business accounts.

The Agency’s investigation further revealed that the company embeds trackers that share data with third parties inside its mobile application without providing users information about it or using the appropriate lawful basis. (VON)