The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has rolled out programme of activities to mark the National Privacy Week beginning from next week Monday, January 25th and ends 28 January: the World Privacy Day.
This year, NITDA has chosen ‘Harnessing data as a critical asset in the digital economy’, as the major theme for the weeklong celebration to raise awareness on data assets, security and privacy. The IT regulatory agency will kick off activities for the week with a Monday 25th media briefing Director-General, NITDA, Mallam Inuwa Kashifu Abdullahi on Nigeria’s data strides.
Tuesday is for a Data Technology Expo and a webinar on Private, Public Health Management: Lessons from Covid-19. A virtual class holds on Wednesday for secondary school students on Online Privacy Protection. Also same day, a webinar is expected to hold on NIN Preserving Privacy – Promoting the Digital Economy.
Thursday, January 28 is the International Privacy Day marked all over the world, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ibrahim Ali Pantami, will be making a keynote to mark the special day and also begin the sig off of activities for the week.
Nigeria officially joined the rest of the world last year January to celebrate the World Privacy Day. According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, “Data Privacy Day (known in Europe as Data Protection Day) is an international event that occurs every year on 28 January. The purpose of Data Privacy Day is to raise awareness and promote privacy and data protection best practices. It is currently observed in the United States, Canada, Israel, 47 European countries and many other countries across the globe where the data industry is steadily growing.
NDPR and Privacy right
NITDA’s choice of 25th January to begin the National Privacy Week is historically symbolic.The Nigeria Data Protection Regulation (NDPR) was issued on 25th January, 2019 to give legal with regulatory framework for Nigeria’s data industry.
The NDPR has since helped to foster an industry for thousands of professionals with more than 70 Data Protection Compliance Organisations (DCPOs) licensed by the NITDA to provide professional services to assist public and private entities to meet the data privacy compliance requirements as stipulated by law.
Privacy right now global obligation
Privacy right is already a global obligation and is increasingly becoming a standard requirement for trans-national business pacts.
Since the implementation of NDPR., the NITDA has helped to advance privacy rights in Nigeria’s push for a digital economy and also to properly positioned the country to leverage global business opportunities.
According to an assessment report on the NDPR, one year after it was unveiled, the country has recorded “the creation of 2,686 new jobs and the data protection sector netted over 2.2 billion naira. This is expected to significantly improve as awareness is deepened in the public and private sectors.”
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