Tetconsult Harps on Data Protection, Confidentiality to Earn Citizen’s Trust
Emma Okonji
Five weeks after the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) Act was signed into law by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Tetcosult, a technology empowerment and transformation company, has stressed the need for data protection and confidentiality awareness among Nigerians in order to build trust between citizens who generate data and those who control and process citizen’s data.
The Chief Executive Officer of Tetconsult, Shola Taylor, made the call during the ongoing training on data protection for a select number of staff of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), organised by Tetconsult in Lagos.
Taylor, who is the former Secretary General of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO), spoke on the theme: Data Protection-Policy, Regulation and Practice.
According to him, it is important to take advantage of the country’s data protection law to train organisations on data protection and compliance strategies.
“When people are informed about the benefits of data protection and the importance of keeping data in high confidentiality, they will be able to protect people’s data that are in their custody, and ensure that people’s data are not compromised.
“It will also enhance the trust of citizens who give out their data in trust to those that keep such data. When their data is protected, government will have enough data to work with when making policies on national development and growth,” Taylor said.
He therefore advised NDPC to create awareness about data generation and data usage, through collaboration with government agencies like the NCC to deepen the awareness strategies. NDPC has to get the private sector involved in the awareness creation and the emphasis should be on the need for data protection. Those that generate data and process data should be conscious of data protection and confidentiality, he said.
He explained that digital technologies have had tremendous and radical impact on society over the past few decades, adding that the entire industries have been transformed by new data generated from the use of the internet.
“A new hyper competitive business environment has emerged where innovation is prized and super changed startups can take significant market share from even the most established and successful household names. Data generated must therefore be kept protected in high confidentiality by those who control and protect data.
“In the case of data hack, citizens that own the data must be informed in a most transparent way and in the case of data breach of organisations, appropriate penalties must be applied,” Taylor said.
Head Legal, Enforcement and Regulations, Nigeria Data Protection Commission, Babatunde Bamigboye, who represented the CEO of NDPC, Dr. Vincent Olatunji at the on-going training session, said data protection remained key to individuals and organisations, and stressed the need for Data Processing Officers (DPOs) and Data Controlling Officers (DCOs), to always protect the volume of data that have been entrusted in their care.
“The role of the NDPC is to regulate, protect and impose penalty on any individual or organisations that breaches the data protection law, and the benefits of data protection are numerous, which include: To access personal data after several years; Accuracy of personal data and the opportunity to have a secured and highly confidential data. He spoke about the need for data users to seek the consent of citizens before their data is used, to avoid litigations.
