Bolt to appeal court ruling ordering it to pay GHC1.9m in damages

Bolt Holdings Ou, the data processor for ride hailing platform Bolt, has announced its intention to appeal the recent court ruling ordering it to pay GHC1.9 million in damages for failing to detect a rider’s identity theft.

The company in a statement acknowledged its wrongdoing and admitted that the identity theft did not happen outside of its ecosystem.

“We wish to highlight that in the Court’s ruling, it has not been disputed that the identity theft of the Bolt rider occurred entirely outside of Bolt’s ecosystem and was not caused as a result of any breach or compromise of Bolt’s App or systems,” Henry Whyte, Senior Operations Manager, Bolt Rides noted.

However, Bolt says its legal team has reviewed the decision and intends to appeal the ruling, expressing confidence that “an appeal process will provide a more accurate outcome.”

Bolt further noted that it remains committed to protecting the privacy and security of riders and drivers, stressing that the incident was only an isolated one beyond its control.

“While this isolated incident originated beyond our control, we take this matter very seriously.

“As we move forward with the appeal process, Bolt remains committed to cooperating with relevant stakeholders and regulatory authorities to enhance the safety and security of our platform in Ghana,” Bolt added.

Background

Bolt was ordered by the Adentan Circuit Court to pay a Lecturer and Chief Executive Officer of a software solutions company, Justice Noah Adade an amount of GHS 1.9million.

This was after the court had found that the company had failed to detect the stealing of the Lecturer’s identity and its subsequent use by a driver.

Mr. Adade in August 2022 ordered a Bolt ride on his phone and found himself, that is his photograph and details as being the driver to pick him up. When the ride arrived, it was his own employee, one Peter Walker who was driving the vehicle. Mr. Walker admitted to stealing the Lecturer’s identity and successfully registering himself as a driver on the Bolt App.

The lecturer then took the matter to the court asking the court to find that Bolt had been negligent in failing to verify the identity of the driver hence allowing the identity theft to take place.

The court presided over by Her Honour Sedinam Awo Kwadam found that Bolt was required by Ghana’s data protection Act to undertake a liveliness identity verification check when registering a prospective driver.

It therefore ruled that the failure to undertake this check amounted to a breach of its duty of care owed to the data subject (Mr. Adade).

The court noted that this also amounted to non-compliance with Sections 20 of the Data Protection Act which bars data processors from processing personal data without the prior con- sent of the data subject unless the purpose for which the personal data is processed is necessary for the purpose of a contract to which the data subject is a party.

This failure the court stated subjected Mr Adade to emotional distress and Trauma for seeing himself as a Bolt Driver operating over an uncertain period of time.

This it noted also amounted to a damage to his reputation forcing him to expend resources to seek legal redress.

source: 3news