Communications Authority of Kenya

Telecoms regulator, the Communications Authority of Kenya has set up a messaging service to identify genuine mobile phones in the country. “In furtherance of its consumer protection mandate, the Authority has set up a Mobile Messaging Service to aid users in ascertaining whether the mobile phone handsets they own or are about to purchase are genuine,” they said in a notice.

Telecommunication giant Safaricom on Friday announced a new security feature to curb fraud. The feature will alert customers via SMS whenever someone tries to register a line using their credentials. The SMS alert from 707 will immediately be sent to your handset and you can reply with ‘NO’ if you are not the one who initiated the registration.

This move is aimed at curbing fraud as rogue individuals have been obtaining details of clients and use them to register new lines and access M-Pesa accounts.