SIM Registration App: You are being careless with sensitive data of Ghanaians – STRANEK-Africa to gov’t

Strategic Thinkers Network-Africa (STRANEK-Africa) has raised concern about the SIM Card Registration Self-Service App, insisting that the arrangement with a third party is in breach of data protection laws.

Due to the challenges with acquisition of the Ghana Card leading to the inability of subscribers to complete Stage 2 of the SIM card registration, only 16,590,350 out of 42,121,921 active SIM Cards have been registered as of 28th July 2022 making a total of 38%.

The SIM Card Registration Self-Service Application (App) called the GH SIM SELF REG, was released to resolve the issue of completing stage 2 of the SIM card registration.

STRANEK-Africa after making its checks uncovered that a privately owned United Kingdom registered company named, XCCEL Limited is hosting the App instead of a government agency.

STRANEK-Africa also discovered that all data captured by XCCEL Limited is uploaded to an Amazon Web Service Server which is not controlled or owned by the government.

Drawing the attention of the government, it noted the action is in sharp contrast with sections 17 and 18 of the Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843) and Article 18 (2) of the 1992 Constitution. STRANEK-Africa has admonished the government to stop being careless with the sensitive data of Ghanaians.

“Basic security practices should send a clear signal to government that, this is a very careless approach considering the fact that such data captured are sensitive. Personal data must be processed taking into consideration the protection of the privacy rights and all these must be done in a reasonable and lawful manner,” part of a statement issued by STRANEK-Africa on September 5 reads.

It adds, “We wish to employ Government to be extra cautious in heeding fidelity to our Ghanaian laws on data protection.”

Below is a copy of the release from STRANEK-Africa: