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- [00:01]
Host 1
We have hopefully a nice change of pace for you today when we ask you, our listeners, for the types of editions you enjoy. We get a wide variety of responses that make it fascinating for us to host this podcast. You like a wide variety of content and formats and that's awesome. There are deep dives into pressing and complex issues. There are conversations around ideas to make sense of the world, and there are explorations that go deep into how the issues we care about are experienced in people's lives across the world. The next three editions are that they're a series of explorations into people's lived realities. We have guests from Kenya, Colombia, Vietnam and Ghana talking about their work, particularly with young people.
- [00:37]
Host 2
What makes this series so interesting is that it was done through a health initiative that is, we've been fortunate over the past few years to work in a research network called the Digital Health and Rights Project. And that project involved engaging with diverse young adults from across the world using participatory action research methods. And the project investigates essentially how tech, health and human rights intersect in a context of global and local inequalities and advocates for collectively for rights of young adults in civil society in low and middle income countries.
- [01:16]
Host 1
So being part of this project has allowed us to meet with people doing incredible work on health, including organizations working with diverse communities like people living with and affected by HIV around the world.
- [01:27]
Host 2
And so as part of this project in each of those countries, the researchers set up what is called the Community Advisory Team, more often referred to as a cat, within the project that these teams would bring together young adults, health advocates and rights advocates to explore these really complex issues. And in this series of conversations you're about to hear, we get to bring you into some of that work to hear what the researchers learned and to hear what we learned along the way.
- [02:00]
Host 1
And we learned a lot by approaching the issues that we love, not from how they are so important on their face, but how they come to have meaning and value as young people, like, live their lives. So this episode on Kenya and the next two you'll see on Colombia, Vietnam and Ghana are going to be marked community health. If you're interested, then we think they're pretty interesting. If you're not, no worries. We'll be back to our normal Tech Pill programming shortly.
- [02:35]
Gus Hossain
Welcome to the Tech Pill, a podcast that looks at how technology is reshaping our lives every day and exploring the different ways that governments and companies use tech to increase their power. My name is Gus Hossain and I'm the Executive Director of Privacy International.
- [02:48]
Caitlin
And I'm Caitlin. And I'm PI's campaigns coordinator High.
- [02:53]
Gus Hossain
This week, we're talking about life in Kenya as a young person, from mobile money to data protection to government surveillance. In a sense, I guess it's a combination or the lived reality of so many of our previous, more recent podcasts. We're going to be talking about id, we're going to be talking about government surveillance, we're going to be talking about laws that don't actually work and what it actually means in people's lives. And we're very excited about our guest today.
- [03:19]
Host 1
So let's just get right ahead and jump in.
- [03:22]
Gus Hossain
Yeah,
- [03:35]
Joan Mosena
I wear very many hats. I'm not sure which hat you want to introduce in this.
- [03:43]
Caitlin
Well, it's kind of up to you. Which hat would you prefer was foregrounded?
- [03:47]
Joan Mosena
Well, I'm Joan Mosena. My work looks at the intersection of digital health, financial access and data rights, and particularly through the Digital Health Rights Project with Kellyn. So I'm particularly very interested in how digital systems are meant to expand access and especially for vulnerable young women in Global South.
- [04:10]
Caitlin
That's perfect. That's brilliant. And it brings us very neatly onto our first question, which is you've been working with the Digital Health Rights Project and with Kevin and Kenya Year. Could you explain a little bit about the research you've been doing?
- [04:22]
Joan Mosena
I've been very keen on how digital health and financial access is becoming more and more accessible to young women, and in particular, how we are moving in the era of AI. And that means that us as young people, we need to have smartphones that are connected to the Internet. How is that becoming accessible in the country? And I'll give an example, particularly in Kenya, where we are having these very cheap phones that are being sold. You can pay, as a microloan, every day, a particular amount. It does give us young people access to the Internet and access to communication and access to information out there. But at what costs? I've been looking at it keenly on how young people are becoming slaves to these mobile loans. We have a name for them.
- [05:17]
Kenyan Researcher
We call them Lipopolepole loans in Kenya. And how at the end of the day, you find that these loans are so punitive such that young people end up paying three times the amount of that phone.
- [05:30]
Gus Hossain
Oh, no.
- [05:30]
Joan Mosena
Yeah.
- [05:31]
Kenyan Researcher
And you're supposed to pay $2 every day. It's, like really cheap. It's $2 every day, but $2. How accessible, how affordable is that for a young person who's jobless, who's probably in school, who's unemployed, who is living below the poverty line. $2 is a lot.
- [05:50]
Joan Mosena
And if you don't pay that $2, they switch off the phone. You can call, you can text, you can't communicate with that phone at all. It becomes so bad, sad that these young people end up working for these phones. So you go for every day, the work that you're doing, the $2 that you're being paid. $2 in my country is like 200 bob. So you'll find that some of the young people, the jobs that they do, the manual jobs that they do, that's the amount that they get paid. All of that goes to paying for the mobile phone. So you're paying for information, you're paying for Internet access, but you don't have food on your table, you do not have transport, you do not have a house. So at the end of the day, young people are becoming more and more slaves to these punitive mobile phones.
- [06:35]
Gus Hossain
Yeah, and what kind of phones are we talking about?
- [06:38]
Joan Mosena
It's such a basic phone, guys.
- [06:40]
Kenyan Researcher
I mean.
- [06:41]
Joan Mosena
Oh, no, it's a very basic phone.
- [06:44]
Kenyan Researcher
It's a phone that's probably worth $50,
- [06:47]
Joan Mosena
but you will end up paying up
- [06:49]
Kenyan Researcher
to $200 for it. It's that bad.
- [06:52]
Gus Hossain
Outrageous.
- [06:54]
Joan Mosena
When you pay for the phone, it
- [06:55]
Kenyan Researcher
doesn't come with the Internet, it doesn't
- [06:57]
Joan Mosena
come with data, it doesn't come with airtime. You still have to buy airtime and buy data and all.
- [07:04]
Caitlin
It's really interesting because a few years ago, PI did a load of research on cheap phones. You know, for a given value of cheap, but like comparatively low cost phones, and those low cost phones, whilst they are worth $50, which isn't a small amount of money, they're also significantly less good for the privacy of the person using them. They often come with loads of bloatware. Like, you know, it claims it's got, I don't know, two, three gigabytes of space or whatever. And then like a third of that's taken up with nonsense apps you can't get rid of. They've got loads of trackers, they've got loads of other things. And so if you've got no money, then you end up with a worse quality of privacy. To have no money, end up with the worst quality of privacy and have to pay for that three times over is horrendous with the kind of increased digitisation, particularly in Kenya, with things like MPESA and access to health and access to information. Is the Internet becoming such a vital part of People's lives that these loans are just. There's no other option you can't go without.
- [08:04]
Kenyan Researcher
Yes.
- [08:04]
Joan Mosena
There's this joke that we always say about my country in Kenya, we have good Internet, actually. Very good Internet compared to most of the African countries. We have very good Internet, cheap data, and very idle young people. And that is why we are always fighting online wars. Young people are not employed, but we have great Internet and a lot of information out there and very educated. We have a cohort of young people who are extremely educated who have access to very good Internet and a lot
- [08:40]
Kenyan Researcher
of time in their hands.
- [08:43]
Joan Mosena
Yeah. So that results to a lot of bullying online. A lot of young people spending too
- [08:48]
Kenyan Researcher
much time on the Internet and learning from and accessing most of the services through the Internet because it's accessible, it's. It's cheap. So in my country, we're in an era where I can't think of any young person that I would mention off my head that doesn't know how to use the Internet from as young as the age of 10 years, probably younger. If you're in the urban areas, even in the rural areas, by the age of 12 years, you're already accessing the Internet. You're already using M Pesa and navigating this digital platform with a lot of ease. So access in my country is not a problem. The challenge is what that access is meeting. Because when you combine widespread connectivity with unemployment and economic pressure, you create this situation where young people are spending more
- [09:36]
Joan Mosena
time online and sometimes engaging in. Yeah, as I was saying, a lot of online bullying.
- [09:42]
Kenyan Researcher
I mean, we are known. Kenyans are actually, which is not a good reputation for being very, very intense online bullies.
- [09:51]
Gus Hossain
Argumentative perhaps.
- [09:54]
Kenyan Researcher
I mean, we made CNN apologize, so fair enough. Yeah. So we can. And most of these young people are
- [10:07]
Joan Mosena
online because they're trying to find opportunities, but they're also increasingly being exposed to digital financial products such as these punitive loans.
- [10:18]
Kenyan Researcher
So the same infrastructure that enables access to information also becomes the channel through which young people are targeted, profiled and drawn into borrowing. And that is a contradiction.
- [10:34]
Joan Mosena
So as much as we have solved the issue of access to information Internet access, we haven't really solved protection. We are far from solving that.
- [10:45]
Caitlin
And when you say targeted, do you mean in a technological sense or in a sense of being so online and it just being kind of very, very common and so people stumbling across it more often?
- [10:56]
Joan Mosena
So we're talking about young people accessing social media platforms that are harvesting their information and send it to third parties. We've had these cases where Facebook and all these online platforms get your information, your location, you know, your demographic information. And they sell these to third parties who then send you marketing adverts, loan adverts. Like, particularly if I open my TikTok account, I won't even go five scrolls before Zenka, a mobile loan app, shows up offering to give me a loan of 5,000 is like $50, which is like very affordable interest.
- [11:41]
Kenyan Researcher
So it looks very promising on the outside, but if you look at the payment cycles, how much you end up paying, it's very punitive. But as a young person who's unemployed, who needs these 5,000 shillings, I won't even look at the fine blueprint. I'm going to be. Okay, let me. All they need is my, my name,
- [12:04]
Joan Mosena
my ID number, my phone number and
- [12:08]
Kenyan Researcher
my information about my next of kin. I'm going to give all these details and then I get my 5000. I'll delete it later, you know, but at the end of the day, we keep on accumulating these loans and they don't get paid. And you know, the worst part about these loans is if you don't pay because they have access to your mobile phone, you give them access through the app that you downloaded, they get into
- [12:32]
Joan Mosena
your contacts, they start calling people in your contacts.
- [12:36]
Gus Hossain
Oh my God.
- [12:36]
Joan Mosena
Yeah.
- [12:37]
Caitlin
And when they call people, like, yeah,
- [12:39]
Joan Mosena
they'll call them, they'll call your colleagues and tell them, tell Joanne to pay the loan that she owes us. They call your relatives. We have had these cases, some have even gone to court about the level of harassment that these people will do to the people in your contacts, just randomly. Because when you're installing the app, you'll give it access to all the, access to your contact list, access to your messages, it is such dire infringement of your rights. Very sad. Again, we have increased access, but we are so far from figuring out protection.
- [13:23]
Gus Hossain
So it's interesting because about 20 years ago I was doing some research with researchers in the region and included Kenya. And we were doing research on health and access to health services. And it was early days of everything. But what they were saying at the time was the problem was that there was only one mobile phone for every family and that mobile phone belonged to, often to the head of the household. And as a result, any text messages coming in from doctors or from the health services would necessarily have to go through the head of the household first. And I'm curious now, with this distribution of technology, like with 10 year olds who are now on the Internet in Kenya, yeah, it just feels odd that there's just so much technology. But I guess in theory these problems no longer exist. Or how does this work in health?
- [14:20]
Kenyan Researcher
So the disparity when it comes to
- [14:22]
Joan Mosena
technology is so loud in my country.
- [14:25]
Kenyan Researcher
It's amazing.
- [14:26]
Joan Mosena
And I completely relate to what you're
- [14:28]
Kenyan Researcher
saying, Gus, because when I was a
- [14:30]
Joan Mosena
teenager, it's true, we only had one
- [14:34]
Kenyan Researcher
phone in my household, and that was my father's phone. And I don't even think I remember how it looked like because I probably saw it less than 10 times. So the only in that, at that time, the only way I could access Internet was. Or information was either through him or I would have to go to the cyber, which was very expensive at that time. And now we are in an era
- [15:05]
Joan Mosena
where there are a lot of phones everywhere. Cheap phones in, in my household currently, they're like free phones. So a lot has progressed within the last one decade in terms of access. Because now we have very cheap phones, we have a lot of good Internet. Accessibility is no longer a problem. The problem is how does this access look like for a young person? When we talk about a young girl who's living in a middle class setting,
- [15:37]
Kenyan Researcher
they probably have enough access to the Internet. This young person lives in a household that has probably more than two phones. There's a likelihood she has her own phone. In 2026, it's very common for them to have their own phone. But then if you look at a young girl who's living in an informal setting like Kibera slums, that is very different. Because as much as the phones are cheap, how cheap is cheap? Yeah, yeah. So we still have young people who
- [16:08]
Joan Mosena
don't have these mobile phones, but they
- [16:11]
Kenyan Researcher
have peers who have the phones. So as much as they're not relying on phone, that probably is with the mother or the father, they have one of their peers who has a phone that they all used. So how private is your information?
- [16:26]
Gus Hossain
Wow.
- [16:27]
Caitlin
Like, because there are so many around and because access has changed so much, have you found that more and more things have moved online even as the disparity has remained? Like, because I think what's really interesting about Kenya, at least when I went, is how ubiquitous MPA is, which is a mobile money kind of payment platform.
- [16:46]
Host 1
Right.
- [16:46]
Caitlin
It's everywhere. But if you don't have that access, then it's no longer ubiquitous, if that makes sense. And I wonder if the volume of phones and the availability of phones and the availability of the Internet has pushed more things online even while the disparity remains.
- [17:04]
Joan Mosena
That is very true. You see, as much as phones are relatively cheap, a SIM card is even cheaper. A SIM card in my country costs less than a dollar. And all I need for me to be able to have MOPA money is the SIM card. So this brings in another danger because as a young person, I do not have a phone, but I have a SIM card and my SIM card has money. So what am I going to do?
- [17:30]
Kenyan Researcher
I'm going to borrow any phone nearby, put in my SIM card, get access to my money, but then when I put my SIM card in that phone, my messages are gonna go to that phone. Again, privacy.
- [17:44]
Caitlin
That's fascinating.
- [17:46]
Gus Hossain
I've never thought about that. Oh my God. Because I've never shared a phone with somebody.
- [17:50]
Kenyan Researcher
I'm even shocked that you guys are
- [17:51]
Joan Mosena
shocked because this is our reality.
- [17:54]
Kenyan Researcher
Personally, I don't even.
- [17:55]
Joan Mosena
Yeah, let's say I should probably be shocked. But it's very common for young people.
- [18:03]
Kenyan Researcher
Sharing phones is really common for us young people.
- [18:06]
Gus Hossain
So in a sense it's not much different than sharing a computer. But just there's something about the sim.
- [18:11]
Kenyan Researcher
Yeah, yeah.
- [18:12]
Caitlin
I've never thought about a SIM as something that you would carry independently. But like now you've said it, I'm like, of course people do that. That makes so much sense. It's low key. Genius. But you're right, if you are putting your SIM card into lots of different phones and especially if you have like, you know, medical information or medical texts, particularly like if have a condition that is comparatively marginalized, like if you're living with HIV or any number of other things.
- [18:38]
Joan Mosena
Exactly. I mean, we've had so many cases of young people who've been outed on their status through that. Because your phone is where you receive your, your message, your message from your facility to come pick your drugs. And now you put in this SIM card on, on your friend's phone and you have, they, they don't know that you're on, you're on treatment and that message comes in and that is just how you're outed. We have so many cases.
- [19:07]
Caitlin
Is it socially different? Because if it's like your parents finding out, then it feels like probably more dangerous than if it's like mates. But then I don't know if that's just a bit of false accounting.
- [19:21]
Joan Mosena
But you see, in my country you
- [19:22]
Kenyan Researcher
can't legally register a SIM card until you're 18 years and you have an ID. So the SIM card that I own was registered for me by my boyfriend or a friend. So I don't want my mom to know that I have a SIM card. Oh, so it's about lesser evil.
- [19:38]
Caitlin
Exactly. Yeah. About lesser evil.
- [19:40]
Host 1
Exactly.
- [19:42]
Kenyan Researcher
Yeah. So I won't go use my mother's phone because my mother doesn't know I own a SIM card.
- [19:48]
Caitlin
Right, right.
- [19:51]
Kenyan Researcher
I'd rather resqueze my PS phone or a stranger's poem.
- [19:56]
Gus Hossain
I have to admit, a part of me is loving the subterfuge. I feel like we're raising a generation of hackers as a result of this. But it's also, you know, with all the trouble that goes with it. Wow. Wow. You walk around with like a wallet full of SIM cards for all the reasons you might have.
- [20:12]
Joan Mosena
I mean, in my country, we have phones that can accommodate up to three SIM cards.
- [20:16]
Gus Hossain
No, I did not know that.
- [20:19]
Kenyan Researcher
Wow.
- [20:19]
Gus Hossain
See, to me, if you told me that before this conversation, I would say you must be a spy. But no, it's just because this is how you live.
- [20:28]
Joan Mosena
Yeah. And we're not just talking about just having the SIM card and the mobile money. We're also talking about the mobile loans. I think my brother has 10 SIM cards.
- [20:40]
Gus Hossain
Oh, God.
- [20:40]
Caitlin
Like a Rolodex of SIM cards.
- [20:43]
Joan Mosena
Because there was a time where you could register as many as possible, but then Safaricom narrowed it down to now you can't have more than five, I think, registered to your name. So now you will register and then you would go look for your. For someone else's id. You register using that. So this is creating a lot of ID theft, identity theft, a lot of it.
- [21:06]
Kenyan Researcher
Because, for example, I've already taken a loan with my number that's registered with my id. I can't register any more lines under my name and I need to take a mobile loan, the micro loans.
- [21:19]
Joan Mosena
So I'll go take my mother's ID or my.
- [21:23]
Kenyan Researcher
Someone's ID who I know has only one number, so they still have postloads, they can register.
- [21:30]
Joan Mosena
And then at the end of the
- [21:31]
Kenyan Researcher
day, the person like, I've had this instant again with my brother where he registered a line with my ID and I had to pay for that loan because I didn't know I took a loan. So this is actually very common with young people and it's leading to serious ID theft. It's actually a prevalent issue currently in
- [21:55]
Joan Mosena
the country where your ID has been
- [21:57]
Kenyan Researcher
used to register another SIM card somewhere and someone used it to take a loan. So nowadays apparently, I hear they require you to physically be there and, you know, take a photo of yourself before you register the line. So they're trying to curb that.
- [22:12]
Gus Hossain
And so like back when you could have 10, back when you didn't have to show ID in order to get the SIEM, was there less fraud because there were less loans through the SIEM because it was not considered as secure, or was it just as problematic?
- [22:28]
Joan Mosena
Mobile loans have really grown in the last 10 years. So back in 2009 we didn't have mobile loans, we only had M? Pesa. We didn't even have Mshari, which is now linked to M? Pesa. So you could only send and receive money. The mobile loan started around 2012, thereabout. And it's around that time when now because. Because there was a lot of people registering phones randomly because you didn't need to have, you know, the physical id. And this was something that was being done with the registration agents. So they will register for you lines, as many as possible. And then you would go taking loans, taking loans, taking loans.
- [23:13]
Gus Hossain
Oh God, yeah.
- [23:14]
Kenyan Researcher
So they started.
- [23:15]
Joan Mosena
Now you have having these. Every line, every phone number, every SIM
- [23:20]
Kenyan Researcher
card has to be linked to an id. But then it has now increased the ID left. Because I only need an ID doesn't necessarily mean that I have to show my face and I can go to. Because we have these. I mean, you've been to Kenya, I've seen these MPESA agents all over. You can just go to your nearest MPESA agent and give them the id.
- [23:40]
Joan Mosena
They don't care if it's your face or not.
- [23:43]
Kenyan Researcher
You just want to sell the SIM
- [23:44]
Joan Mosena
card
- [23:46]
Kenyan Researcher
so they register you. So nowadays, recently, I think it's the last year or the other year, you now cannot register a SIM card unless you go to a Safaricom shop, not the MPESA agent.
- [23:59]
Gus Hossain
And at that shop, will they do a better job of the identity verification or is it just like at the M? Pesa stuff?
- [24:06]
Kenyan Researcher
It's better than the M? Pesa one, definitely. Because at some point the identity thieves, let me call them that they would
- [24:13]
Joan Mosena
even work in cahoots with these MPESA agents because these MPESA agents are young people who.
- [24:19]
Kenyan Researcher
Someone who's just finished form four and they need a side hustle, something to do as they wait to join companies. So they're very young people and, you know, so it, it was easy for them to maneuver around the MPESA agents than it is now to maneuver with
- [24:34]
Joan Mosena
the Safaricom agents because.
- [24:36]
Kenyan Researcher
Because this is managed primarily by Safarico.
- [24:40]
Joan Mosena
It's not an independent.
- [24:42]
Kenyan Researcher
So if you're right, now if I find out that someone has registered a
- [24:46]
Joan Mosena
SIM card under my name and I don't know, then I can sue Safarico because they are primarily in charge or currently in charge of registering or SIM cards.
- [25:06]
Caitlin
So at the moment, the experience, the whole experience is you're a young person, you're scrolling on TikTok, you're being targeted with advertising for loans. You take out a microloan which is attached to a SIM card which may or may not be assigned to your name, which you're putting in kind of stranger or friends phones, which is accessing their contacts. So when you don't pay back the microloan, it's calling not necessarily even all your contacts, but their contacts.
- [25:33]
Kenyan Researcher
It's a mess.
- [25:33]
Caitlin
And it's just amazing like how many stages there are and how many ways in which your privacy is being violated. Your data, the names and numbers of your friends, like every single aspect of that is kind of built on violating your privacy.
- [25:51]
Joan Mosena
Yeah.
- [25:52]
Gus Hossain
But the thing I love most, the thing I absolutely love most about what you're saying though is I've been working on identity policy for way too long and I keep on trying to avoid getting into these fights. But when people talk about how important ID is, there are two countries on the planet they refer to as where ID has been essential and the innovations have been so essential. So they point to Kenya and they point to India. And what I find fascinating about your example, apart from Caitlin's outrage about the situation that arises as a result of it, is what you said about people taking legal action against Safaricom because Safaricom, while they're the essentially the assure of identity, they're liable when something goes wrong. And that's the missing part of all ID systems. Who is at fault when something goes wrong. And Safaricom being the largest telco in Africa, let alone one of the largest on the planet. So it is really interesting the direction of these things. Okay, but my ID rant is over. Like, I don't want to talk about ID too much.
- [26:50]
Joan Mosena
But then this still doesn't take away the risk of having your ID take a loan that then didn't necessarily come to you. I remember my first SIM card that I ever owned was registered by my mother and it didn't have her ID details. That time it wasn't important.
- [27:10]
Kenyan Researcher
All we needed was a name.
- [27:11]
Joan Mosena
But because she didn't think I needed
- [27:13]
Kenyan Researcher
to have an ID that has my name, it was registered in her name.
- [27:18]
Joan Mosena
The second SIM card I owned was mine, but I didn't even register with my ID. I didn't have an ID. I was 17, I didn't have an ID. So I just had a SIM card right now as we speak. I have two cousins who have SIM cards registered with my id.
- [27:39]
Gus Hossain
Oh really?
- [27:41]
Joan Mosena
But then they keep taking loans with these SIM cards that I keep paying.
- [27:48]
Gus Hossain
You are the best cousin ever.
- [27:51]
Joan Mosena
I know, I know. So despite the fact that I know and I registered these SIM cards for
- [28:00]
Kenyan Researcher
them and I gave them, it doesn't
- [28:02]
Joan Mosena
take away the risk of them taking
- [28:03]
Kenyan Researcher
loans with these SIM cards. And I can't control that because they don't live with me. They are in school but whenever they take like there was a time they had a Fulizza loan that it's a loan that is linked to your MPESA and I didn't know about it.
- [28:16]
Joan Mosena
And so I got this message from
- [28:18]
Kenyan Researcher
Safaricom in the land that I use that I have a Fuliza that is way overdue and it's going to affect my Msuari. Msuari is like it's a savings platform again linked to M Pesa. M Pesa is amazing. It's, I mean Safaricom, they were genius with that. So I had to pay the full lease. So we have, we are having so many of these instances where caregivers and guardians are forced to pay loans for young people because of the lines that you're using are under their name. So it still doesn't take away the risk of a young person taking a loan that they can't pay because it was offered to them in a very vulnerable setting. Because if you're giving me 5,000 and I don't have that 5,000, I'm going to take it without a payment plan. And they don't even ask for if you're employed or if you have any source of income. They don't care, just take the loan.
- [29:14]
Caitlin
It sounds a bit like we've had a lot of issues with like loot boxes and other kind of gambling style things in kids games. And the number of stories we've seen of kids racking up huge bills that their parents then get presented with. Your child has spent a thousand pounds on a loot box in some random Roblox claim or Minecraft and you can tell I'm just ever so slightly too old.
- [29:42]
Gus Hossain
You're not down with the kids?
- [29:43]
Kenyan Researcher
I'm too old for the games but
- [29:45]
Caitlin
I'm not, not old enough to have kids playing the games. But it is a similar thing where kids are being presented with things with financial implications with very little checks which are arguably entirely targeted at them because they're kids. Because they maybe don't have that responsible thing and they have someone with maybe slightly more money who's responsible for them. And then it's similar with Buy Now, Pay later apps like Klarna and others that take very small purchases and promise to split them over a number of periods. Again, similarly, without doing the checks on can you actually afford this? Is it responsible for us to give you this loan? Is this going to cause you problems that a traditional bank loan would do?
- [30:29]
Joan Mosena
Then getting guarantors and collateral, they don't do any of that. So at the end of the day, for them to recover their money, they have to harass you, harass your relatives, harass people in your contact list, even to the point of harassing your work colleagues.
- [30:47]
Caitlin
Has anything changed since the Data Protection act came in? Because the Kenyan Data Protection Act's pretty recent, I think.
- [30:55]
Joan Mosena
So I would applaud my country for the Data Protection Act. It's a step in the direction.
- [31:02]
Kenyan Researcher
But, Caitlin, if you've read that Data
- [31:04]
Joan Mosena
Protection act properly, it's very lazy, it's very general and very ambiguous.
- [31:11]
Kenyan Researcher
So, again, as I said, it's a
- [31:13]
Joan Mosena
step in the right direction, but we
- [31:15]
Kenyan Researcher
have a long way to go in terms of having a very robust Data Protection Act. Honestly, the first time I read it, I was like, did they chatgpt this?
- [31:27]
Gus Hossain
Chatgpt 3.0?
- [31:31]
Kenyan Researcher
All right. But it's.
- [31:33]
Joan Mosena
Again, we are, I mean, we are
- [31:35]
Kenyan Researcher
the first country in East Africa to have a Data Protection Act. So it's a step in the right direction, but we still still have a long way to go in terms of refining it to make sure that it's very robust. That is the first issue. The second issue is, yes, we have a Data Protection act, but how good are we in terms of implementing it? The implementation of this Data Protection act is very. I mean, it's there, you know about it, but how many people, again, know about it? What are the reporting mechanisms in place? Have we seen people who've gone to jail? Because we haven't seen anyone yet. People just sue people for infringement of rights. They get fined and some cases even take forever. They never, you never get really justice.
- [32:20]
Joan Mosena
I've had cases that I know of where people have sued for infringement of their privacy and it has been thrown out because, again, corruption, because it's about how much you pay. How much do you pay to get the case kicked out. So we're talking about you suing a big company, a giant like Safaricom or these loan apps, because, I mean, they're companies, they're making a lot of money. And me, a young person who's unemployed, who doesn't have any source of income or chance do I stand in town, they'll bribe the judge, the data protection office, and have my case thrown out. I've seen so many of such cases. So at the end of the day, I do know that these people violated my rights. But I'm very lazy to do anything about it because it won't go anywhere, it's going to get thrown out.
- [33:09]
Gus Hossain
So what makes me very sad about that is that when you get a data protection law, particularly in the case of Kenya, the data protection law was coming in at a time when the Kenyan government wanted to introduce an ID system. It was coming in at a time where the health sector was being digitized. So the law is supposed to be the enabler of those in that only with this law could those systems be made safe. And yet here you're telling us that the law is not that great and its implementation is uneven. Can we talk a little bit about the health aspects of these things?
- [33:45]
Joan Mosena
Thank you so much, Chris, for mentioning that. And at that time when we were doing a lot of advocacy against the nupi, we just called it the NUPI number, this unique number that you would have that would have all your health information. And I was working for an organization, I don't know, you know, that organization Network. I was working for Network at that time. And we did a lot of advocacy against that because we could see the vulnerabilities of it. I mean, yes, the government is saying
- [34:16]
Kenyan Researcher
we have this, but we have this protection act that's going to protect you and your data. But is it, is it one of the risk of that? Is the larger picture happening between Kenya
- [34:27]
Joan Mosena
and the US where Trump is giving
- [34:30]
Kenyan Researcher
us money, but we giving our data to them?
- [34:33]
Joan Mosena
I have no idea why they are
- [34:35]
Kenyan Researcher
interested with the health data, our health data, but it's very interesting that our government can just sell our health data to other advertise. So let's assume that NUPI number had gone through. It would mean that other party somewhere has access to all the medications that John takes, all the regimens that I've taken, everything concerning John's health, everything. And if they're selling it to that, what stops them from doing it to
- [35:04]
Joan Mosena
another and another that we don't know about?
- [35:07]
Kenyan Researcher
Because I mean, it's Kenya. We know our government does a lot of shady businesses with private entities that we've come to find out way later. So when it comes to digitizing our held information, it's something that I feel we are still not ready for it. Because we still do not have the robust data protection laws to ensure that we are protected, not even against ourselves, our individuals, but against the government itself. Because the first people that are going to violate that is the government.
- [35:53]
Gus Hossain
So it's fascinating that we're covering the whole stack of life in Kenya where right now we're talking about the power of the government to essentially with access to your health data, to make that data available to others without your control. But earlier we're also talking about people who have to share their phones, who receive their text messages from their health provider. That health provider might be the local clinic for people living with hiv. And so your data is just leaking everywhere.
- [36:24]
Kenyan Researcher
It's layers and layers on layers.
- [36:29]
Gus Hossain
And so it's down to the family and the friendship networks all the way up to governments and other governments or other companies. But don't worry, you have a data protection law.
- [36:38]
Kenyan Researcher
It's very interesting. There was a time we did this research with Kellyn under the dhrp.
- [36:43]
Joan Mosena
We were asking young people about what it means for them to know that they're being surveilled. And we were asking them a series of questions. Which one is more scary to you?
- [36:53]
Kenyan Researcher
Being surveilled by your family, being surveilled by your facility, or being surveilled by your government? And they didn't care about the government, which is very scary. But I would understand why they're more concerned about being surveilled by their family.
- [37:12]
Joan Mosena
So as young people, I feel like
- [37:14]
Kenyan Researcher
we are at that place where we know. I know my information is being used somewhere where I have not given access to. But I'm going to choose my hard. I'm going to control my environment and just ensure that the people around me are not the people that are leaking the information. So if they're using John's information out there, they don't know it's me, so they don't know the face to it. So I'd rather deal with protecting myself against the people who have a face to the name rather than the people
- [37:47]
Joan Mosena
who only have the name. So that means that I, as a young person, I won't hesitate if the government is collecting data about me. I'll give them all the data that they want. But I will hesitate if I am disclosing something to my family or if I learn that my aunt or my mother has been reading my text or looking through my laptop what I'm googling. I would worry more about that than worry about the government surveilling what I'm googling. What are my messages? That doesn't concern me much. That is the place where young people are, which is again, very scary because it comes from a point of ignorance. But then lack of information and lack of sensitization because to me, it won't concern me because I don't know what they're doing with that. And I don't think it affects me.
- [38:44]
Kenyan Researcher
I don't know it affects me. But with my circle, I know how it affects me. Because these young people do not understand the implication of the government surveilling them, of these private entities having their data and their information. They don't care much.
- [38:59]
Gus Hossain
I remember a PhD I examined about 15 years ago where it was about HIV clinics in Kenya and how, again, it was just at the time where mobile was taking off. But there were case studies or examples or anecdotes of how if you showed up at a health clinic and you were in the waiting room outside a specific door, that meant you were there to get treatment for hiv. And the worst thing that could happen is if your family member who also worked in that clinic saw you outside that door, then the news would travel. And so the protection of privacy, it wasn't a database question as much as it was that societal pressure question. But as the database becomes more and more integral and that data gets sold and shared and so on and so forth, I imagine. And it's not like the concerns of people are going to just reside only in the community, it's nice to know that there is this natural revulsion towards the loss of control. And I think it's almost the duty of the advocate to make sure that that extends up the stack all the way back up to government's actions.
- [40:13]
Caitlin
I think we're probably overrunning a tiny little bit because you're fascinating. We talk to you forever.
- [40:18]
Gus Hossain
You're a great podcast guest for your first podcast.
- [40:21]
Caitlin
Yeah, you should do more podcasts.
- [40:22]
Gus Hossain
You should do more podcasts.
- [40:25]
Joan Mosena
Yeah, you guys should invite me for more conversations.
- [40:28]
Kenyan Researcher
We will.
- [40:28]
Caitlin
We will. Thank you so much for joining us.
- [40:44]
Gus Hossain
Thanks for listening. You can sign up to be the first to learn more about our work@pvcy.org podsignup app and we'll include some links to relevant articles and information in the description, wherever you're listening or on our website@pvcy.org techpill don't forget to rate and subscribe to the podcast and whichever platform you use. Music courtesy of Sepia. This podcast was produced by Max Brunel for Privacy International.
- [41:19]
Caitlin
Sam.