A Nigerian court says Truecaller’s consent doesn’t cover the data in your contacts
Truecaller cannot use one person’s consent to justify processing another person’s phone number, a Lagos High Court has ruled. But the same court declined to award damages, exposing a gap in Nigeria’s privacy laws: what happens when your data is used without permission but you cannot prove measurable harm?
On September 14, 2026, a Lagos High Court ruled that Truecaller's consent for processing phonebook data is not sufficient to cover the personal data of contacts who never used the app. The court stated that one person's permission to share a phonebook does not give a company permission to process the personal data of everyone in it.
Truecaller was found to have violated Nigeria's 2023 Data Protection Act by processing contact data without explicit, informed, and unambiguous consent from all individuals in the phone book. The court denied damages to affected individuals, creating a gap in Nigeria's privacy regime - companies can lack a lawful basis to process someone's data, while those individuals may still receive no compensation without proving concrete harm.
The ruling highlights the need for clearer guidelines on how digital platforms obtain lawful consent, particularly when it comes to accessing contact lists and crowdsourced identity databases.
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