Published: May 26, 2026
MONROVIA – The Liberia Telecommunications Authority (LTA) has fined Orange Liberia four million Liberian dollars and ordered the company to disclose the identity of an employee and an unknown individual who fraudulently took possession of a customer’s SIM card, in what legal experts are calling a landmark but insufficient ruling on consumer data privacy.
The LTA Board of Commissioners, chaired by Clarence K. Massaquoi, endorsed the findings of an investigative committee on May 13, 2026, formally constituting the ruling as the authority’s final decision in the case of Zelah Johnson against Orange Liberia — a complaint that stretched more than two years before reaching resolution.
The committee determined that Orange failed its duty of care under the Telecommunications Act of 2007 and ordered the company to pay L$2 million for two counts of breaching security measures by accessing Johnson’s network data for a dishonest purpose, and an additional L$2 million for two counts of intercepting her communications through unauthorized technical means.
A Number Stolen in Class
The ordeal began on Feb. 7, 2024, between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m., while Johnson was attending class. Her Orange number went dead. Assuming it was a temporary network glitch, she waited. The next morning, she walked into an Orange office and was asked, to her alarm, whether she had retrieved the number the previous day. She had not.
Orange reactivated the number and told her to wait 30 minutes. When service resumed, she could receive calls, but her WhatsApp account was gone. Whoever had fraudulently obtained her SIM had already used it to lock her out of the messaging platform. Orange technicians worked for days to restore access but failed. Approximately 10 days later, according to Johnson, the number was blocked a second time, a claim Orange disputes.
Unable to get a response from Orange after writing the company to seek redress, Johnson hired an attorney. A conference was convened at Beyond Law Chambers on June 18, 2025. There, Orange admitted that her number had been given to an unauthorized person without her knowledge or consent. The company produced Vivian Tarlue, the employee whose terminal was used for the fraudulent issuance. Tarlue told the conference she had left her workstation and credentials with a male colleague, who carried out the transaction. Orange did not contest that account but said it violated company policy. The male employee’s identity has never been disclosed publicly. Orange subsequently terminated Tarlue.
For Johnson, the termination of one employee while the other remains unnamed, and the unauthorized recipient of her SIM card still unidentified, left her exposed to dangers she cannot fully assess.
“I feel somehow, because this has gone for way too long,” Johnson said after the ruling. “Whoever had access to my number had access to my WhatsApp, and whatever it is that he has, this could be used against me in the future.”
‘The Fine Is Too Low’
Johnson’s attorney, Cllr. Moriah Yeakula-Korkpor, welcomed the LTA’s intervention but was measured in her praise, calling the financial penalty disproportionately low given the gravity of the violation.
“The fine is a bit too low compared to the magnitude of the offense,” Cllr. Yeakula-Korkpor said. “When every single citizen should have the sense of security of their number being owned by them, and that sense of security is stolen because Orange deliberately and intentionally gave the SIM card to someone else without the approval or knowledge of the user, it scares everyone.”
She argued the penalty should reflect the full weight of the privacy breach and raised the question of whether current law is adequate to address offenses of this nature. “This does raise questions about reforms around these things as well as penalties, not just to the government but also to the complainant from the company,” she said, adding that she and her client would continue discussions on next steps to ensure Johnson receives adequate relief for what she has endured over the past two years.
“No citizen of Liberia, no user of any telecommunications network or number should have to go through the agony, the pain, the emotional distress of knowing that your number was taken away from you and given to someone else, and that the company has refused to identify who that person is,” Yeakula-Korkpor said.
She nonetheless credited the LTA for seeing the investigation through to a conclusion and expressed hope that the ruling would serve as a deterrent. “I’m hoping that this situation is the last of its kind and that companies cannot get away with doing things like these to users,” she said.
Regulator: Simply Returning the SIM Was Not Enough
The LTA’s investigative committee, composed of five members, including Cllr. Phil Tarpeh Dixon of AOL and four officers from the Governance and Consumer Affairs division rejected Orange’s central argument that reactivating Johnson’s number effectively resolved the matter.
The committee’s report found that Orange’s acknowledgment that a SIM was issued to the wrong person fell far short of the full disclosure required by law. Under Section 49(2) of the Telecommunications Act of 2007, customers have a legal right to review service provider records about their service. The committee found that the company should have provided Johnson with a complete log of all activity on her number during the period it was out of her possession, including calls, text messages and any mobile money transactions.
The report also invoked Section 76 of the Telecommunications Act, which prohibits intentionally accessing a telecommunications network or intercepting communications with dishonest intent, and cited Chapter 51, which holds service providers corporately liable for the actions of their agents regardless of whether those actions occur during working hours or through an employee’s own terminal.
“The involvement of Orange staff acting on their entity’s business creates corporate liability which Orange does not extinguish merely by saying it conducted administrative action against the staff,” the report states.
The committee further determined that Orange’s license under Chapter 7.1.3 expressly provides for financial penalties for violations of the company’s license terms, LTA regulations and the laws of Liberia.
Disclosure Ordered
The LTA also ordered Orange to disclose the identity of the staff member who issued Johnson’s SIM to the unauthorized individual, and to identify the person or persons who wrongfully placed her number in possession. Johnson filed her formal complaint with the LTA on Oct. 20, 2025, after direct resolution efforts failed. The authority convened the parties in February 2026, gave them two weeks to reach a settlement, and reconvened after Orange requested an extension. Both parties ultimately reported that no settlement was reached.
Johnson’s lawyer said her client’s fear of future blackmail remains real and unresolved, given that whoever held her number had access to her personal communications and digital identity. “Having someone else in possession of your private personal information is completely wrong,” Yeakula-Korkpor said.
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