Lack of awareness on digital privacy rights causing havoc online-group

From Adanna Nnamani, Abuja

A civil society group, Public and Private Development Centre (PPDC),

has called on the federal government to improve measures on data privacy rights awareness, insisting that ignorance is one of the major reasons people continue to fall victims to various forms of cyber crimes.

The group also charged the government to stipulate more stringent laws on data privacy to adequately protect the citizenry and punish offenders.

Nkem Ilo, President PPDC spoke at a roundtable discussion on Data Privacy and Protection in Nigeria held in Abuja on Wednesday.

According to Ilo, many Nigerians are not aware of what constitutes a data privacy bridge or what they should do in the case of a violation, adding that lack of awareness has continued to cause havoc in the digital space

Ilo insisted that the government must braze up to the challenge of working with civil society organisations and private organisations through its various related agencies to educate the masses, especially children on their data privacy rights using the media.

Related News

She said “I think the government needs to do more, and it’s not just the government. Government should partner with civil society organisations, private sector organisations, to educate people. They say education is key but we hear about data rights. What are data rights? If i ask you what are your rights as a citizen of Nigeria i am sure you would say freedom of the press, access to information, right to privacy, right to gathering, we have all the different rights in the Constitution. But what are digital rights? The digital system has come to stay. We are not going back. We are not going analogue. Now is the time to focus on educating citizens. We have the National  Orientation Agency, whose purpose is to educate and orient. We need those kinds of agencies to begin to talk to us about what we should be aware of when signing documents. What will even constitute a violation of my right to protection, of my right to privacy? What will constitute that and when that has been violated where do I go to? We hear of multiple agencies, we have the National Human Rights Commission that deals with human rights. Do you immediately think that your data rights are human rights? More often than not we don’t. Even though I would consider them fundamental human rights.  We know of course the consumer protection agency. They have a big long name now. But when I think of them I think of “oh one fridge i bought it is not working let me go and report. I don’t imagine them as the one responsible for a company’s mechanism when it comes to data rights. And these are things the government needs to clarify for us as citizens, to educate, enforce to ensure trust for people to be aware the government has their back.

Also speaking, the National Commissioner/CEO National Data Protection Bureau (NDPB), Dr Vincent Olatunji, said the government was working seriously to to protect citizens’ data.

He however, noted that a firm regulatory instrument was required to be able to properly deal with issues of data privacy invasion.

“The trend globally, it is important for any country operating in the digital space to have a full flagged agency to regulate the space and implement data privacy, protection. Since we have started with the regulation, we hope to have the law that will make it an act of parliament to adequately protect Nigerians. That is why the President, based on the advice of the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, created the National Data Privacy Bureau. To ensure that the draft law is pushed for passage in the National Assembly before the end of 2022; to ensure that we regulate what people do online in terms of how do we protect their data privacy, how do we ensure users freedom is guaranteed and companies are expected to file data privacy compliance reports.

Commenting on the National Identity Management Commission’s (NIMC) system breakdown, Olatunji said the issue was still under investigation to ascertain the cause of the problem.

“Yes. We are still investigating. In technology what happened is just like an accident and it can happen at any time. And not until we know the actual facts of what really happened, we won’t be able to comment on that for now but we are working with NIMC to find  out what really happened and if there are measures we need to put in place so that it will not happen again. But for now we can not really do detailed comments on it.

On the issue of loan sharks, he said “We have actually started  meeting. We understand that these loan sharks target the vulnerable groups in the society that do not really understand what they are going into. You just click and they give you that money and if you default, for only one, two, three days, they start sending messages  to your people. You now discover  that there are two issues here. One, the issue of technology. What kind of technology are they deploying to have access to people’s contacts on your phone?  Two, the issue of privacy. So these are the things we are looking at and with the fact that we need a very firm regulatory instrument to be able to deal with it.”