By Joyce Danso
Accra, Sept. 19, GNA – An Adentan Circuit Court has awarded GHC1.9 million compensatory damages against Bolt Holdings OU, processor for Bolt Operations and owners of Bolt platform in Ghana, in a civil suit.
The court also ordered Bolt Holdings OU, the first defendant, to pay cost of GHC20,000.
The court presided over by Mrs Sedinam Awo Kwadam dismissed the plaintiff’s claim against Bolt Ghana Limited, second defendant in the suit in its entirety.
According to the Court, Bolt Ghana Limited was not the appropriate party to the suit.
The judgement of the court came after Justice Noah Adade, the plaintiff and a Lecturer of Kumasi Technical University, had gone to court over “identity theft”.
The Plaintiff, who is also a Board Chairman of the University, on August 1, 2022, ordered a bolt ride on his phone and found himself, his photo and details being the driver responding to pick him up.
When the driver arrived, it was the Plaintiff’s own employee, Peter Walker, who was driving the vehicle.
Peter Walker confessed to stealing the identity of the plaintiff and successfully registering himself as a driver on the Bolt App as driver in the year 2022.
Engagements with Bolt Holdings OU also known as the second defendant did not yield any fruitful results by way of compensation for the plaintiff hence the suit.
The Court in its judgement noted that the suit hinged on the processing of the plaintiff’s personal data which was undertaken by Bolt Holdings OU at the request of “the identity thief”.
According to the Court, the processing was done by Bolt Holdings OU hence it was the appropriate party to the suit.
It noted that the second defendant owed the plaintiff “Duty of Care” and reasonable standard of the duty of as found in Section 20, 21, 28 and 30 of Act 843 of the Data Protection Act.
“The failure of D2 to undertake the liveliness identity verification check as part of its digital identity verification check while processing the personal data of the purported applicant amount to a breach of D2’s duty of care owed to the Plaintiff herein.”
It held that the Plaintiff’s personal data was not procured “directly” from him and thus was processed without his prior consent.
According to the Court, the Plaintiff seeing himself as a bolt driver operating over in the year 2022 caused him “profound emotional distress”.
“Knowing an unknown number of Bolt ride users must have thought him to be a Bolt driver despite him being a co -founder and Chief Executive Officer of Glydetek Group, a financial Software Solutions provider for over 70 financial entities in Ghana and a Lecturer and Board Chairman in Kumasi Technical University surely had Plaintiff emotionally distraught and traumatised.”
Looking at reputation in his industry, the court held that, to be described as bolt driver, could be considered as “downgrade” and dent on his reputation in the minds of right thinking members of society especially in his community of businessmen and women.
“This Court recognises this fact, with no prejudice to bolt drivers.”
The Court held that it did not find any evidence to support the claim made by the second defendant that the plaintiff’s negligence contributed to his identity by Peter Walker.
It said the plaintiff was not negligent in any way that might had caused his identity to have been stolen and used to register him unknowingly and without his prior consent as a driver on the bolt App.
“The Plaintiff did not abet his impersonation,” the Court declared.
In an overaching need to sanitise Bolt Holdings OU as well as other ride-hailing platform systems, the court ordered the Data Protection Commission to ensure forensic audit of defendants’ systems and database and undertake with the second defendant a liveliness identity verification check for all its drivers registered on the Bolt App or Platform up until March 2024 registrations.
“The Data Protection Commission shall ensure that other ride-hailing platforms in Ghana undergo this exercise as well, for the period they have not undertaken such verification process for the drivers who use their platforms,” the Court ordered.
GNA