Users of major sites in Kenya rarely take the time to read the terms of privacy before signing in and using such sites, to the delight of people and entities mining their data for advertising and marketing purposes.
Gideon Rop, project support engineer at DotConnectAfrica, told participants at the Kenya Internet Governance Forum last week: “60 per cent of social media users never know what the terms of service meanwhile 80 per cent haven’t read or understood what their terms of privacy mean.”
Rop said the days when people went to social media to relate with each other and discuss human rights were gone, with the medium now having become a place for revenue collection. He said there should be an awareness campaign over privacy and the need to know the terms of service.
His sentiments were echoed by Microsoft’s Ann Nganga, who said if user data was to be used then users should be made aware of how and when.
“Think security by default, and privacy by default,” she said, going on to add some people use the same passwords for all their online engagements, which is dangerous as if one account is hacked all are susceptible.
Nganga called for the creation of a data protection unit in Kenya to ensure all data is protected, as in countries like Mauritius.
