Kled AI, an opt-in AI data marketplace, has temporarily removed its AI app from the Nigerian App Store, with IP banned across the region, due to what it described as the country’s high fraud rate and increasing instances of fake data on the app.
Avi Patel, the founder of the AI data marketplace, confirmed the removal in an X post on Monday, noting Nigerians uploaded pictures of black screens, duplicate photos, internet-generated images, and AI-generated images, rather than usable data.
|
|
According to the 22-year-old founder, Mr Patel, despite paying people for data uploaded, Nigeria still had a 95 per cent fraud rate in their uploads, a sharp comparison with Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, which have a less than 10 per cent fraud rate across 10 per cent of the user base.
“We have removed Kled from the Nigerian app store, and IP has banned the entire region. Kled has been up and running and out of beta for 4 months now. We have paid out hundreds of thousands of people for their data, and our users have uploaded over 1 billion assets onto our platform.
|
|
|
|---|
“After several months of uploading, we found that Nigeria had a ≈95% fraud rate. Instead of real, usable data, users were uploading pictures of black screens, duplicate photos, internet-generated images, AI-generated images, etc., at an unimaginable scale.
“In comparison, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines have a less than 10 per cent fraud rate across 10x the user base size. Our fraud system is fast to catch these issues, but the level of complexity of these schemes is getting out of hand,” Mr Patel said.
He said his clarification on the ban followed hundreds of comments the startup received from Nigerian users for two weeks, demanding why the app was banned from the Nigerian app store.
The Kled AI founder explained that Kled AI systems were flooded with thousands of fake Japanese passports and identity cards with Nigerian photoshopped in its KYC system, from Friday to Sunday alone, describing the action as “the final straw.”
Mr Patel said the startup could not afford to eat the costs of the data overhead, saying the app will continue to be on ban in Nigeria despite calls for reversal of the decision. He added that the startup has also improved its fraud detection to filter out bad actors appropriately.
“As a startup, we can’t afford to eat the costs of that data overhead, so we temporarily removed the app from the region while we improved our fraud detection and banning system to quickly filter out bad actors when the time is right.
“On top of all of this, every time we make a post, someone is asking us to bring the region back within seconds. We hear you, but it’s gotten out of hand. We’ve made this decision with great care. We love everyone who has genuinely supported Kled from Nigeria, and we hope to return when the time is right,” Mr Patel.
Disclaimer
In a subsequent post addressing reactions on why the app was banned from the Nigerian App Store on Tuesday, Mr Patel clarified that the action was not a marketing stunt, but an effort to protect its users.
He lamented that the AI app also faces impersonation and fake data, which has led to it being banned in Nigeria, though available in other African countries.
“We certainly don’t need the exposure or the users. Even if we did, why would we ban a region from the app store and then market to that same region?
“Kled is ONLY available on iOS, not on Android. There is a very clearly fake Android app (the logo isn’t even our logo) that is impersonating us, with only 5k downloads, that we have reported for takedown.
“Kled does not steal people’s data. You can download Kled on the App Store today and submit pictures, videos, or documents of any kind that are used for AI training data, and instead of getting it ripped off your device, we pay you for it. Fair compensation for your efforts is what we have built on,” he said.
Kled
Kled, an opt-in AI data marketplace, was top 100 in the Nigeria App Store several times over in a 4-month timespan, having over 25,000 users in Nigeria alone.
READ ALSO: Beyond the Algorithm: How African Board Leaders Can Turn Artificial Intelligence into Strategic Advantage
According to the founder, across a 10-million-upload sample from Nigeria, 94.2 per cent was fraudulent, meaning the data was AI-generated, fake, altered, or internet-plagiarized.
“Kled easily catches this and bans users accordingly, but this costs us resources and time, not to mention that no fraud detection pipeline is perfect, meaning bad data can inevitably fall through the cracks.
“This bad data can severely harm the trust that AI labs have put in our business. If the fraud rate was even 50 per cent, we as a team would have chosen to keep Kled on the Nigeria App Store, but 95 per cent is too much,” he said.
![Aero Contractors Company of Nigeria Limited used to illustrate the story. [Photo credit: Daily Mail]](https://i0.wp.com/media.premiumtimesng.com/wp-content/files/2017/11/Aero-Contractors-Company-of-Nigeria-Limited.jpg?fit=634%2C423&ssl=1)
