The Namibian Ministry of Information and Communication Technology is busy inviting comments from the public on the draft Data Protection Bill till the end of November 2022. Some of your rights as a consumer whose data is being collected and processed will allow for you to have information corrected or removed as well as punishments for non compliant entities.
In October 2022, it was found that the Namibia Students Financial Assistance Fund had placed files on their website to indicate the successful students who have received assistance. One of the files, placed in November 2019, was a 106 page document that included the following information:
- Last Name
- First Name
- Unique ID
- Namibian ID
- Cellphone Number
- Students Number
All in all, 10,972 students details with all necessary information to steal their identity was placed inadvertently on the Internet.
Over the past week, all the students on the list have been contacted (and added to this newsletter) to inform them of the data leak. It must also be noted that the NSFAF has also blocked any downloads from their site after they were informed of the incident.
Unfortunately, until the law is in place, there is no recourse for anyone whose identity has been stolen in this manner.
