The Hon. Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, will flag off the National Privacy Week beginning on Saturday, January 28.
The Week’s flag-off, which begins with a press conference, coincides with the marking of Global Data Privacy Day. National Privacy Week also coincides with the one-year anniversary of the establishment of the Bureau.
It is a Day that has been set aside to create awareness of fundamental rights and freedoms relating to the privacy of citizens in the data processing ecosystem.
Championed by the Nigeria Data Protection Bureau (NDPB), it is a week of intensive focus on awareness creation in the area of data subjects’ rights, capacity building on data governance, and data breach remediation among others.
A statement from the agency under the leadership of Dr. Vincent Olatunji, reveals the verge of setting up an Accelerated Data Breach Remediation unit to resolve petitions from data subjects within the National Privacy Week.
NDPB was established in line with global best practices and is focused on data protection and privacy for the country, among others.
It was reported that the successful implementation of the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS) for a Digital Nigeria has significantly increased the adoption of data platforms and accelerated the datafication of our society.
This has increased the importance of having an institution that focuses on data protection and privacy.’’
The issuance of the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation (NDPR), a subsidiary legislation to the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) Act 2007, increased awareness about the need for data protection and privacy.
The NDPR was established to regulate those who have access to and control people’s data.
Prior to the establishment of NDPR, there existed provisions in a few laws which protected certain information or data from unlawful use. However, unlike the NDPR, these provisions were ambiguous, inadequate, and ineffective in imposing sanctions and ensuring compliance in the event of a data breach.
Recall that in January 2022, the NITDA said that it was partnering with relevant stakeholders to come up with a code of conduct for social media activities in Nigeria as part of an effort to protect Nigerians from data privacy intrusion.
The agency was putting measures in place to impose more sanctions on data privacy violators such as Loan Applications platforms breaching its users’ privacy.
The Chief Executive Officer of NDPB, Olatunji, holds a Ph.D. in Geography and Planning from the University of Lagos and an Advance Diploma in Computer Science.
