A Safaricom customer has become the first complainant over access to information denial by the Telco.
Gravel Mwambala has filed a complaint with the Commission on Administrative Justice (Office of the Ombudsman) seeking to have Safaricom Limited release data pertaining to his registered mobile phone number.
Mwambala is seeking information from the mobile service provider to present it to the police as evidence of a crime he is alleged to have been involved in on July 22, 2013.
He argues that on the said day he was being attended to at a hospital at Gongoni in Malindi, a different location from that of the alleged crime.
The information he is seeking from Safaricom would verify his exact location on that day.
The Office of the Ombudsman says this case is a demonstration of the import of the Access to Information Act, 2016.
Public and private entities are obligated to, among other things, facilitate access and publication of information held by them; and publication of information of any contract entered into and policies affecting the public.
The Act gives effect to Article 35 of the Constitution and confers oversight and enforcement functions to the Commission on Administrative Justice.
The role of the Commission in this respect includes handling complaints relating to access to information; consideration of reports from public bodies on implementation of the Act; and monitoring Kenya's implementation of international obligations relating to access to information among others.
Mwambala says that he visited Safaricom offices on September 26, 2016 for the requested data but the company refused to provide the information.
The complainant says he was at Gongoni in Malindi where he had gone to see a doctor and not the crime area as alleged.