Why Bolt holdings OU has been ordered to pay GHC 1.9 M damages to ride user
By DL News
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Justice Noah Adade, who is a lecturer, booked the hail riding service on August 1, 2022 only to find his photograph and details being the driver who responded to pick him.
Bolt Holdings OU has been ordered to pay a sum of GHC1.9 Million to a ride user for the company’s non-consensual processing of a client’s data at the request of an identity thief.
The court further awarded a cost of GH 20,000 against them for their negligence arising from the breach of Sections 20, 21, 28, and 30 of the Data Protection Act, 2012(Act 843).
The crust of the case tried at the Adentan Circuit Court presided over by Her Honour Sedinam Awo Kwadam was that a client, Justice Noah Adade, who is a lecturer, booked the hail riding service on August 1, 2022, only to find his photograph and details being the driver who responded to pick him.
When the driver arrived, he discovered he was his employee, who had confessed to stealing the plaintiff’s identity and successfully registered himself as a driver on the Bolt App.
Justice Adade thus sued after an attempt by his lawyers to claim compensation from the company through negotiation proved futile.
In the judgment, the court found Bolt Holdings OU liable for its breach of duty to the plaintiff owing to its failure to undertake a liveliness identity verification check as part of its digital identity verification process while processing the personal data of the purported driver.
Also, it held that the non-compliance to the liveliness verification identification duty amounted to a breach of the Data Protection Act.
The court then deemed it fair and just to award compensatory damages of GHC 1.9 million against Bolt Holdings OU per Section 43(1) of Act 843.
An additional cost of GHC 20,000 was also awarded against the second defendant, Bolt Holdings OU.
