Kenya's telecommunication giant, Safaricom, has denied sharing customer data with security agencies who were cracking down on anti-tax demonstrations by young people to protest against new tax hikes.
Thousands of protesters stormed Kenya’s parliament on Tuesday, burning parts of the building while legislators fled. Police responded with gunfire. Kenya Medical Association said at least 23 people were killed.
The Kenya Law Society President Faith Odhiambo said on Tuesday that 50 Kenyans had been “abducted” by people believed to be police officers.
Some of those abducted had been vocal in the demonstrations and were taken from homes, workplaces and public spaces ahead of Tuesday's protests, according to civil society groups.
Public suspicion
There has been public suspicion over possible involvement of Safaricom, Kenya's largest operator, in disclosing information about its customers, including their locations and identities, to security agencies.
On Wednesday, Safaricom's Chief Executive Peter Ndegwa defended the company against the claims in a video posted on X.
"I want to be very emphatic that Safaricom does to disclose customer information or their location. We adhere to the laws... in terms of data privacy," he said.
The chief executive also absolved the company from blame on internet service disruption witnessed on Tuesday evening that affected social media use among the protesters, in what NetBlocks called a “major disruption".
Network outage
Ndegwa "sincerely apologised for the network outage".
He said the outage ''was caused reduced bandwidth on some of the cables that carry internet traffic which affected the whole industry.''
Earlier on Tuesday, the company said it could only share customer data when issued with a court order, but had not received such an order to share customer information with any government agency.
A statement by diplomats from 13 Western countries including the United States said they were “shocked” alleged abductions of protesters.
