The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami said that the Data Protection Regulation has added 2,686 job roles, thereby creating massive opportunities for young Nigerians to be recruited as Data Protection Officers, Data Protection Compliance Organisations, Compliance officers among others.
Pantami spoke on Friday, 9th October, 2020 at the Public Presentation of the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation (NDPR) Performance Report 2019-2020.
He reiterated that the DPCOs have also earned over N2billion in the first year of implementation.
“This is the intent of our digital economy policy- empowering Nigerians in a way that ensures global competitiveness, Pantami said.
Pantami recalled in early 2018, when he constituted a team of young NITDA staff to come up with a draft data protection regulation in line with Strategy 13.3 of the National Information Technology Policy (2000) and Section 6(a,c) of the NITDA Act 2007.
He said that after a lot of debates and iterations, he issued the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation (NDPR) on the 25th January, 2019.
He commended the Director General of NITDA, Mr. Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi for not only continuing with the vision, but for providing leadership to his committed and highly professional staff who have demonstrated excellent capacity to translate leadership vision to reality.
Pantami also gave his full support to NITDA as the data protection authority; to ensure entities that wantonly breach personal data are brought to book as soon as possible.
While congratulating NITDA for this achievement, he urged the Agency to ensure wide circulation of the report to the National Assembly, embassies and international agencies, heads of government parastatals, private sector players, the academia and other relevant stakeholders.