From Adanna Nnamani, Abuja
The Association of Licensed Data Protection Organisations of Nigeria (ALDAPCON) has advocated the need for a principal data protection law in the the nation in order to reduce concerns about data leakage, guarantee the confidentiality and privacy of data, and advance the nation’s efforts to undergo digital transformation.
The Chairman of the Association, Mr. Ivan Anya, in a press conference Wednesday in Abuja, said the Data Protection bill when passed into law will also, enable effective data flow and create economic development for the country.
According to him, this will also enable data processors and data controllers to have significant clarification of duties.
“From inception of our work in the industry we actually face a whole lot of this level of resistance, some of them are still there, some are still waiting for secretariat regulators to advice them as to what direction they should take not understanding by themselves why they should ensure compliance. We also have the issue of technicality in that is prevalent within the ecosystem, interfacing solutions, instances where you have a hosting of Nigerians data outside of the country. You need to access to ensure that such host or where Nigerians data are hosted is in full compliance with the Nigerian data protection regulation.
“The key words that would have been of big issue is the aspect of the law which we are hopeful that as soon as the data protection bill is passed it will be paid to a whole lot of the technical and procedural issues we faced in terms of compliance.
“The bill is expected to contribute to the legal foundations of the digital economy of Nigeria and its participation in the regional and global economies through the beneficial, trusted use of personal data would help mitigate issues on data leakage, and ensure confidentiality and privacy of data.
Speaking on the objectives of the association, Mr. Anya said Data Protection Compliance Organisations (DPCOs) under the umbrella body ALDAPCON as the privacy overseers in the country, focuses on driving data compliance in the industry which include to provide credible and authoritative data protection advisory to government, private and public organisations in Nigeria
“So we are currently within our second year running since inception and we have been working with the Nigeria Data Protection Bureau, NDPB in championing what it is that should help guide data protection practice in Nigeria.
“The data protection compliance model is the only one of its type globally and no other country currently practices what we do. It is called the Public Private Partnership, PPP arrangement where the supervising authority in this case the NDPB have exceeded some of its functions to the DPCOS that will have to go to business organisations to assist them that they are more compliant, this is what exactly we do,
He said the association is helping create awareness on the importance of Data Protection and cyber security as well as the provision of data, protect law and regulation in Nigeria.
He added that ALDAPCON has also provided certification trainings in data protection as well as the implementation and filling of gaps that may arise in the course of an audit assessment of how an organisation is compliant to the data protection regulations or the laws.
Commenting on the recent memo issued by the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF), directing Ministries, Departments and Agencies to comply with the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation (NDPR), The Chairman applauded the initiative by the government saying that this will ensure Nigerian data is properly safeguarded, as government agencies have the bulk of data in the country and will chat effective ways to promote compliance and implementation in Nigeria especially in government agencies.
He noted that the data privacy sector has recorded significantly achievements, currently between 2020 and 2021 it was about 68% improvement in terms of returns that was found and then in terms of non compliance or non conformity we are yet to assess that aspect but we are hopeful that by the time the 2022 report comes out early in during the data privacy week of 2023, then you know we’ll see exactly what has happened.
He added that on that need assessment audit report which was published early this year for 2021 shows that there have been a significant improvement in terms of compliance within the fintech sector which has been quite remarkable.
