Power given to service providers to intercept communications is susceptible to abuse – Justice Sir Dennis Adjei

Justice of the Court of Appeal, Sir Dennis Dominic Adjei has stated that the power given to communication service providers to intercept information is susceptible to abuse, especially where persons involved are deemed to be opponents of the government of the day. 

Speaking on the topic, ‘Parameters of Right to Information and its Impact on Ghana' at the 2022 Lecture in the Humanities at the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, Justice Sir Dennis Adjei explained that the granting of such power makes it easy to entrap persons who may not have an intention to commit crime but may be set up for political expediency.

Under Ghana’s laws, {Cybersecurity Act, 2020 (Act 1038)} domestic service providers such as Scancom, Airtel, and Vodafone are mandated to install an interception capability to enable them to retain any information on subscriber, traffic data, and content data for at least six years, twelve months and twelve months respectively. 

Any communication on any of the telecommunication networks is also to be retained without the consent of the subscriber and may be disclosed upon an application made to the High Court for that purpose.

“The High Court must not grant any application to intercept or disclose a retained information or block, filter and take down illegal contents and phone numbers on a mere suspicion unless it is satisfied that it is expedient to grant same as are necessary in a democratic dispensation,” Justice Dennis Adjei noted. 

Justice Adjei's submission was particularly related to the access to information through communication service providers.