The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Pantami, has stressed that Data economies hold the key to unlocking the door of Digital Economy in order to create sustainable economic value.
He said this on Friday as a Special Guest of Honour at the World Data Privacy Day 2022 where he delivered an address titled “Data Economics in the Digital Economy Charting Nigeria’s Data Strategy”
“NDPR and other enabling instrument of the Digital Economy are the rules of engagements. For instance, the principles of data protection and data processing enshrined in Article 2.1 of the NDPR should serve as the signpost as we chart Nigeria’s data strategy, Pantami said.
He reiterated that Data processing must be lawful, fair and legitimate; it must be stored safely; it must be accurate; it must not compromise socio-economic stability and public peace; it must be secured and free from manipulations; and that the consent of every data subject is sacrosanct in data processing.
“We are to build a formidable force through compliance to relevant regulatory instrument geared towards achieving the targets of the administration of President Muhammad Buhari GCFR and the vision of ensuring sustainable socio-economic development in Nigeria, Pantami said.
The Minister therefore requested for effective partnership and collaboration with stakeholders in the Digital Economy sector.
He also said before the NDPR of 2019, the Cybercrimes Act of 2015 existed, adding that the Federal Government has engaged the services of Data Protection Compliance officers to create awareness and serve as middlemen between the government and citizens in addressing data breaches.
He commended the Director General of NITDA, Mal. 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.
In his welcome address, the Director-General of NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi the Minister for laying a solid data regulation and protection in the country, said, “We have seen the journey so far and the efforts of the Minister and I believe he is planning to do more so that we can consolidate what we have achieved so far, position it well to create and capture value from the digital economy which drives the growth of traditional economy.
The DG explained that without proper data privacy regulations, the big techs will see us as raw materials for their business.
“The big techs see us as a free great raw material for them to extract our personal experience to commodize it for advertisement and product and service making.
“So without this kind of awareness, we will end up being controlled by this big techs because once they know everything about us; they now know about us the way we think, know our perception and then extract that information and use it as a data, which they call Data experience and sell it as a product that will not be easily cut, timed, and influence how we vote. We have seen it in our elections also influence what we read, see and buy.”
According to Inuwa , the event is to promote compliance with Data Protection Regulations.
“The objective is to let the data collection processors follow a proper way of processing a personal data. We have ethics on what to do. Everything is not about money making or profit . As Human beings, we need a right to our personal privacy data,” he stressed.
As part of the event, NITDA organised a debate/quiz for some schools in Abuja, Astute Montessori School, Kuje, emerged the overall winners with a cash prize of N150,000 with three smart phones, Intelligent Quotient Academy, Garki 2, emerged first runners up with a cash prize of N100,000, while Junior Secondary school, Wuse, emerged second runners up with a cash prize of N75,000.
