Organisations Tasked to Prioritise Awareness on Data Security 

Experts have stressed the need for businesses to take data privacy issues with seriousness and promote awareness on the emerging sector. 

The experts declared this at the maiden edition of Privacy and Data Protection conference tagged, ‘PrivCon Nigeria’ which held at Muson centre, Lagos, recently. 
Organised by Olumide Babalola LP, the conference gathered privacy professionals, regulators, policymakers, end-users and other stakeholders in the privacy and data protection industry to discuss factors stunting sector growth and way out. 

According to the Convener and Managing Partner, Olumide Babalola LP,   Olumide Babalola,   while data protection had gone global, it is still very passive in this clime because of the poor exposure given to it.

He identified lack of awareness, education and weak regulatory enforcement as factors fraughting the sector. 

 “This is why we have put the conference together to identify some of the present and future sector challenges, proffer workable solutions and also create a platform for stakeholders to network”, he said. 

The programme also featured high-level panel discussions that centred round the theme of the conference, “Building Blocks of Privacy and Data Protection Practice for Nigerian Business Community: The Stakeholders Role-Playing”. 

During one of the sessions, Associate Templars, Victoria Oloni charged organisations to build a culture around data security so as to prevent and mitigate the effect of breach and violation. 

“Firms must strive to create awareness and train and retrain their staff on data protection in their own interest,” she said.

Admitting that data breach is unavoidable, Senior Associate, Advocaat Law Practice, Lazarus Kalu said organisations can prevent it or mitigate the effect by being proactive.

He said, “companies must understand any data collected from the point of entry to the exit to be able to fathom and assess the risk of possessing. With this, they can have an idea of risk impact and adopt the best security measures ahead. These measures can be in the form of access control, encryption, firewall and antivirus, amongst others.”

The panelists also challenged the regulators on poor delivery with regards to deterring and investigation of data breaches.