Vodafone and MTN’s Ghanaian units are allowed to share subscriber data with the government to help it track down the contacts of coronavirus cases, a high court in Accra ruled Tuesday.
It would go against citizens’ “overall wellbeing” for the court to stop telecommunications providers from sharing data with authorities amid a pandemic, Justice Stephen Oppong said in his decision.
“The purpose of the collection of the data is for the protection of the whole state of Ghana,” Oppong said.
Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo issued an executive order in March calling for providers to tighten their collaboration with the country which reported its first cases of the virus on March 12.
The West African nation had 14,568 cases, including 95 deaths, as of Tuesday, according to the Ghana Health Services website.
