MultiChoice facing fine for Nigeria data breach
Regulators have levied a 766 million naira fine (about $500,000) on the Nigerian subsidiary of Africa's biggest subscription television operator for a "patently intrusive" privacy breach.
The Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) on Sunday accused MultiChoice Nigeria, the Nigerian outpost of South African cable TV provider MultiChoice, of violating data protection laws.
Babatunde Bamgboye, who heads the NDPC's enforcement unit, said the commission began its investigation of the breach in the second quarter of 2024 after the company was suspected of carrying out an "illegal cross-border transfer of personal data of Nigerians".
"NDPC found, among others, that MultiChoice violated the data privacy rights of subscribers and their friends who are not necessarily subscribers," Bamgboye said in a statement.
"The Commission also found that MultiChoice carries out illegal cross-border transfer of personal data relating to data subjects in Nigeria."
MultiChoice did not immediately respond to AFP's request for comment.
This is not the first time Nigeria has clamped down on the company.
Nigeria's Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) froze the company's account in 2022 and asked it to pay a 1.8 trillion naira ($1.27 billion) tax claim and a $342 million claim for value-added taxes.
MultiChoice began operating in Nigeria in 1993 and has more than 2,000 employees in the country.
It has lost about 1.4 million Nigerian subscribers in the last two years as the west African country contends with its worst economic crisis in decades.
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