The Liberia Telecommunications Authority has fined Orange Liberia almost US$22,000 for illegally issuing a customer’s SIM card to a third party, causing a breach of privacy and communications.
Liberia Telecommunications Authority (LTA) has fined Orange Liberia 4 million Liberian dollars (US$21,900) after finding the operator liable for the unauthorized issuance of a customer’s SIM card to a third party, resulting in a privacy and communications breach.
The LTA said customer Zelah Johnson’s SIM was reassigned without her consent in February 2024, cutting off her service and allowing a third party to access and lock her out of linked accounts.
“During the investigation it was found that the SIM card was improperly issued to the third party by Orange, in violation of company procedures and Orange license conditions,” the Authority said.
The LTA ruled that Orange failed to adequately protect customer information and breached provisions of Liberia’s Telecommunications Act of 2007 relating to customer confidentiality, data protection and unauthorized access to telecoms systems.
As part of the ruling, the LTA ordered the telco to disclose the identities of both the employee involved and the individual who obtained the SIM card.
The Authority also imposed the fine for security and communications violations.
“The LTA reaffirmed its commitment to protecting telecommunications consumers and warned that service providers and all actors in the sector will be held accountable for actions that compromise customer privacy and security,” the LTA’s statement concluded.
African countries fining telcos for wrongdoing
The fine against Orange Liberia comes amid a broader trend of African regulators penalizing telecom operators for consumer rights violations.
In March 2026, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) ordered all mobile network operators (MNOs) to compensate subscribers in the event of poor network coverage.
The Zambia Information and Communications Technology Authority (ZICTA) in July 2025 ordered Airtel to compensate customers following a major network outage that caused widespread disruption.
Chad’s telecom regulator, in August 2023, imposed a fine of around US$8.3 million on Airtel Chad due to declining network quality.
In May 2023, Cameroon’s telecom regulator fined the country’s four mobile operators a total of US$9.8 million for poor network performance.
- Connecting Africa
