Do you hate receiving phone calls from third parties promoting their products? What about text messages from political parties advocating for their candidates? Don’t worry, this could soon come to an end as mobile operators and their agents risk a three-year jail term or KES 300,000 fine if convicted of disclosing subscriber details to third parties.

According to the Business Daily, mobile phone subscribers have clearly indicated that they did not wish to receive marketing messages from third parties, suggesting that the telcos use customer database for commercial gains.

Ministry of Information had drafted a new regulation, set to be gazetted on 4^th January 2013, which would see telcos service providers penalized for disclosing customer data.

This means, your SIM card registration details such as telephone numbers, date of birth, gender, address, identity and passport details will be guarded against dissemination to unauthorized parties. Dissemination of such information may compromise your security.

According to the Business Daily, mobile money agents have in the past been blamed for leaking such personal information to political parties’ agents, marketing agencies and research organizations. As a result, many subscribers end up receiving unsolicited political campaign messages, promotional texts and offers.

Mobile service operators will be the custodians of the data they collect from customers and will be required to maintain a register of all subscribers.