A recycled phone number doesn't make the new owner a data subject of the old customer's data

A man who had never joined a SACCO kept receiving its credit and debit alerts after inheriting a recycled mobile number from an existing member. The ODPC ordered KES 250,000 in compensation for the SACCO's failure to stop the messages fast enough. The High Court reversed entirely: the complainant was not a data subject in respect of that number because no data of his was ever processed — only the original member's — and a month's delay in verifying a number reassignment the telco carried out without the SACCO's knowledge was reasonable, not a breach. The Court was blunt that the Act "should not be used as a cash cow," warning against turning number-recycling inconvenience into a compensation industry.