Stakeholders Harp On Importance Of Data Protection Legislation

Stakeholders in the digital communication sector have underlined the need for the principal data protection legislation law to be put in place as the country pursues its digital transformation agenda.

There is no data protection law in Nigeria at the moment, but there are subsidiary legislations.

Speaking during a national validation workshop on data protection bill, organised by the Nigeria Digital Identification Development Project Nigeria (ID4D) in collaboration with Nigeria Data Protection Bureau (NDPB) held yesterday in Abuja, the minister of Communication and Digital Economy Minister, Isa Ali Pantami, said when passed, the law will address the data privacy and confidentiality of Nigerians.

“The growth of Nigeria’s digital economy drives innovations and free flow of data which in turn implies the need to safeguard the rights, freedom and privacy of citizens. At the core of data protection, legislation is the desire to protect individuals’ right to privacy of their information and to secure lives and properties.

“This is achieved through the implementation of legislations, policies and regulations on data privacy and protection. As we all know, the data been generated today is largely, not only in Africa but globally.

“Huge quantity of data is being generated and we must all have a legislative in place to ensure that there is confidentiality and privacy of that data that’s being generated and if care is not taken that data that is being generated will be abuse particularly in the fourth industrial revolution where data is the key, whatever you do in the industrial revolution data is the key,” the minister said.

He said further that in some countries of the world the commercialisation citizen’s data is paramount, it is while we are very proactive in Nigeria in order to ensure that there was no vacuum. We signed up the Nigerian data protection regulations and immediately we commence the process of principal legislation and the reason for the Nigerian data protection legislation is to ensure that there is no vacuum.

National commissioner/CEO, NDPB Dr Vincent Olatunji in his welcome message highlighted the importance of data protection legislation in Nigeria saying that people’s data requires protection.

He said, “Relevant arrangement of law will benefits Nigerians in the society, adding that data protection apply to all work places, businesses, society and groups etc.

Coordinator, Nigeria Digital ID for Development Project (ID4D), Solomon Musa Odole said that the organisation is ready to give support to any legal and institution flame work to access services in Nigeria.