Kenya’s Data Gold Rush: How Social Media And AI Labor Are Exposing Citizens’ Privacy
Kenya’s progressive advancement in the mobile money ecosystem, extensive fibre optic connectivity, and a growing tech startup culture has solidified its reputation as Africa’s “Silicon Savannah.” While at it, in the modern technological sphere data has emerged as the new gold standard and countries are now judged by their Data centre market size, which is the total electrical power capacity available to run, cool, and support IT equipment. In regard to the data center market Kenya leads in East Africa and on the continental level coming behind only South Africa, Nigeria and Egypt. According to The Kenya Data Center Market Report, Kenya’s capacity currently is at 15 megawatts as of 2025 and expected to rise to 25 megawatts by 2030. But despite all the steps made in digital advancement the country is still at a higher risk of cyber security threats with several cases of Cyberattacks and data leaks happening in the recent past.
The digital divide when it comes to Cyber security measures is further widening. While regions like the Middle East continue to have a cyber resilience perception at 40 percent, Sub-Saharan Africa remains extensively exposed with 8 percent perception. This is according to the Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2026, which defines Cyber resilience perception as the ability to prepare for, respond to, and recover from cyberattacks and data breaches while continuing to operate effectively. But thanks to AI, the gap is further widening as it acts both as a transformative tool and a new source of inequity in cybersecurity. This is so evident in the Kenyan setting where AI models training and data annotation is a major source of digital work hence pre disposing critical data. According to the report, As AI capabilities become central to defence and detection strategies, unequal access to advanced technologies, data and expertise risks deepening the divide.
Social media access versus Data protection.
But while Kenyans are busy scrolling, liking, posting, and jumping into AI trends, little do they know how much of their data and privacy may be compromised. It’s not surprising that Kenyan internet users, spending almost 4,2 hours daily on social media, ranked first worldwide according to the GlobalWebIndex (GWI). They also took the 7th place in Africa and 78th worldwide among the countries with the most data breaches according to the Business Insider Africa. To illustrate how widespread the issue actually is, we are talking about 11 people being affected for every 100 users. This is not coincidental since with every minute spent navigating the online space a lot of data and digital footprint is left behind that can be easily manipulated by malicious actors.
This was evident by the Facebook, Cambridge analytica data breach which involved Facebook user data being used to create targeted, often divisive, political campaigns that influenced the 2013 and 2017 elections in Kenya. The recent WEF Global Risks Report 2026, identifies AI-powered misinformation” and “Data insecurity” as top-tier threats to social stability in developing nations. This was evident during the Gen Z protests in Kenya which according to a report released by Amnesty International in November 2025, there was “systematically deployed technology-facilitated violence as part of a coordinated and sustained campaign to suppress Generation Z-led protests between June 2024 and July 2025”
The AI labor Trap
Kenya has also emerged as a top three Business Process Outsourcing(BPO) hub in Africa due to a tech-savvy young population in addition to great digital infrastructure among other factors. According to a report by Strathmore University, We have over 2.4 million workers in Kenya especially in AI related and data annotation tasks. However these opportunities have come at a high cost. The AI labor trap has led to data Privacy as a Price to Pay. Content moderators in Kenya also suffer trauma while handling unmasked, private user data from global social media organizations who have little to no regulation by local laws. Currently, original literary pieces and work from Kenyans are being flagged as AI by AI detectors due to this phenomenon.
Kenya has also been a victim of incentivised AI Data privacy infringement with the World Coin debacle in 2023 where over 350,000 Kenyans had their eyes scanned to receive tokens valued at KES 7,000. Despite a recent court ruling in May 2025 that ordered the data should be deleted from their data base having been unlawfully collected, this implies that our rules and regulations rather than being preventative in nature are reactive and fail to adapt to the ever changing digital ecosystem.
Institutional failure and the path to Data sovereignty
The systemic failure of Kenyan firms and government agencies has been the main undoing when it comes to Cyber attacks and data breaches. Despite several efforts to counter this through relevant legislations like the Data Protection Act 2019 that institutionalized the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC) to oversee compliance, register data controllers/processors, and handle Data related complaints, several loopholes exist. This has made it easier for multinational firms to exploit data privacy without repercussions since most are not covered by local laws.
The July 2023 eCitizen platform cyberattack that paralysed critical government services exposed the lag between rapid digital adoption and the adoption of counter cybersecurity measures. The private sector is also not full proof with the recent data breach case in October 2025 involving a Kenyan mobile health platform, which allegedly exposed the personal and medical records of approximately 4.8 million users. In addition to that according to The Africa Cybersecurity Report 2025, Kenya lost approximately KSh 29.9 billion to cybercrime in 2025, driven by AI-powered, sophisticated attacks.
This points to the need for consolidated efforts between the private sector and government to establish relevant protocols. The problem has never been our laws, it’s one thing to make and draft laws but the ultimate test is implementing these laws to best serve our needs. Digital and data sovereignty is one of the key foundations for leading economies. The current “AI race” especially between the United States of America and China has shown just how far countries are willing to go to protect their citizens’ data and interests in the technological space. With growth comes responsibility, Kenya should strive to protect its data sovereignty and not end up as one of those countries that sold its data sovereignty and privacy for the promise of a gig economy.
By Irke Mudanya- Public Relations Officer at TUKO.co.ke
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