Retail Lending and Customer Privacy in Nigeria
It is becoming a big issue in Nigeria: a lending app makes a small loan to a customer. The customer clicks all the usual things, accepting somehow that the app could tell people in customer's contacts that, if there is a default, the app could tell people that the customer borrowed, and is not paying as planned. Then that happens, and you wake up with friends, enemies and associates writing - “what is going on”? Yes, the app has told everyone in that contact list that you have a debt to settle.
In this piece, a learned gentleman, Chuma Akana. 1st, Partner at Chestter Law LP, explains the law, data privacy and more: “It is interesting to note that the ‘loanee’s’ contact has not given consent for the lending app to process her personal data for any purpose. She has merely given the loanee consent to process her personal data to the extent that the loanee has stored it in his phone, but that consent presumably does not extend to the lending app uploading that data to its server and calling or texting such person when the loanee is in default.”
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