Page 60 - ITU-T Focus Group Digital Financial Services – Consumer Experience and Protection

ITU-T Focus Group Digital Financial Services
Consumer Experience and Protection

Notification by customers is a crucial precondition for providers to address cases of fraud. Agreements specify,
for instance, that customers will be held responsible for transactions conducted without their authorisation
unless they bring this fact to the attention of the provider. Even where customers provide notice of fraud,
provider obligations only kick in after they receive such notices, with a disclaimer of liability for any losses or
damages suffered by customers prior to such notifications.

2.2.2 Third party sharing

Data privacy and protection is another key area of concern. The results from the review show that 83 per cent
of the contracts reviewed had clauses that permit the provider to share information with third parties, such as
credit reference bureaus, law enforcement agencies (both domestic and international), regulators, provider
agents, lawyers, auditors, and subsidiaries.

Sharing of customers’ personal information is also permitted in some cases “for reasonable commercial
purposes related to the provision of services”. This very vague phrasing may give providers room to share
with undisclosed categories of third parties, raising customer privacy concerns.

Figure 2: 3 party sharing
rd

Third party sharing is especially a concern because providers in some jurisdictions have sold sensitive customer
personal information, including financial information.

Management of issues of privacy and data protection by customers is further complicated because many
countries on the African continent lack specific data protection legislation. As a result, customers in a
majority of these countries have to rely on provisions contained in various pieces of legislation that may not
comprehensively protect them. See also Box 3, which is an example of a clause from a user agreement that
may fall short of legal requirements in the jurisdiction.

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