Woman arrested for selling people's personal data

The Data Protection Commission (DPC) has intercepted volumes of documents containing people’s personal information in a shop at the Madina Market in Accra in a joint operation with the Cybercrime Unit of the La-Nkwantanang-Madina Divisional Police Command.

The documents — mainly transfer letters, promotion letters, school certificates and health records — contained information such as bank accounts of employees, salary records, telephone numbers, social security numbers and dates of birth.

A trader at the market, Ms Naa Dei Dzani, was selling the documents to roast plantain sellers, groundnut sellers and other petty traders at 50Gp for 20 copies.

The documents are stamped by the heads of units of some ministries, including Education and Health, and private hospitals in the country.

The Head of the Response Management Team at the DPC, Mr Dennis Darkwah, said the ministries and corporate institutions involved would be invited for interrogation by the commission.

He said yesterday’s exercise was meant to send a signal to Ghanaians about the need to handle people’s personal data with integrity.

The raid

Mr Darkwah said a few days earlier, some members of staff of the DPC had chanced on some documents that had been used to wrap roast plantain at the Madina Market.

He explained that the Executive Director of the DPC, Ms Patricia Adusei-Poku, subsequently deployed a team to conduct preliminary investigations and the source was traced to the Madina Market.

“We finally landed at Ms Dzani’s shop and realised that she was selling documents bearing people’s life data that contain information as recent as 2018 and we think that it’s something that has to be protected,” he stated.

He said the DPC was aware that some individuals engaged in the act of selling people’s personal data to third parties without their consent, adding that the raid was a “start off” point to send a signal for people to desist from that act.

“Section 88 of the Data Protection Act prohibits any individual from selling or disclosing information about any individual without his/her prior consent,” Mr Darkwah said.

The seized documents were handed over to the La-Nkwantanang-Madina Divisional Police Command.

The Police

The police team was led by Inspector Ansah Fianku of the Cybercrime Unit, and they sent Ms Dzani to the Headquarters of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) in Accra for further interrogation into the unlawful possession.

Ms Dzani told the Daily Graphic that she had been selling such documents for the past three years and that she had no idea of the information contained in them.

She said she even found it difficult to read text messages on her phone and did not know anything about any law preventing her from selling those documents.

She said she bought the documents from various vendors who sold old newspapers to her.

She, however, assured the police that she would quit selling them when she was released.