Every day, millions of Kenyans commit a silent act of self-sabotage. We hand over our digital souls to shopkeepers, security guards, and faceless apps, unaware that in the information economy, we are not the customers—we are the product.

The scene is ubiquitous: a commuter in a matatu hands their unlocked phone to a tout to verify an M-Pesa message. A shopper leaves their ID and phone number in a logbook at a building entrance. It seems harmless, a transaction of convenience. But this casual surrender of privacy is fueling a multi-billion shilling black market where your identity is traded, sold, and weaponized against you. We are walking naked into the digital age.

The M-Pesa Fallacy

Legal experts are now raising the alarm on the "M-Pesa confirmation" culture. There is no law requiring you to show your phone to a merchant. The transaction message on their device is the proof. Yet, by handing over your device, you expose your balance, your transaction history, and potentially your contacts to a stranger. It is a breach of the Data Protection Act that we have normalized out of politeness.

This ignorance has consequences. The explosion of unsolicited marketing SMSs and betting spam is not an accident; it is the direct result of our data being harvested from these "innocent" logbooks and sold to brokers. We complain about the spam, yet we continue to feed the beast.

• The Worldcoin Lesson: We saw it with Worldcoin, where thousands queued to scan their irises for Ksh 7,000. It was a desperate trade—biometric permanence for a week’s groceries. It exposed the brutal reality that for many Kenyans, privacy is a luxury they cannot afford.
• The Predator in the App: Loan apps scrape our contact lists to shame us when we default. This is data terrorism, enabled by our failure to read the Terms and Conditions.

Reclaiming Control

The Office of the Data Protection Commissioner is fighting a tsunami with a bucket. The real change must be cultural. Kenyans need to understand that their data is an asset. Your phone number is as valuable as the cash in your wallet. Stop giving it away. Stop showing your screen. In a world that wants to know everything about you, the most revolutionary act is to remain a mystery.