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Companies which failed to file their data audit report by March 15, 2021 risk being sanctioned, Nigeria’s IT regulator, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has warned.
Director General of NITDA, Mallam Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi while speaking today in Abuja at a virtual media interaction to kick off the National Privacy Week said defaulting companies will be made to pay financial penalties and/ or be blacklisted from public projects.
Compliance remain critical to achieving data integrity in terms of privacy and security and NITDA remains committed to achieving the terms of the NDPR 2019 across all spectrum of industries in Nigeria, added Abdullahi.
He said sanctions are not designed to make money for the government or to stifle the business environment, the NITDA boss said.
Compliance is “about creating trust and awareness to ensure stakeholders see the need to comply,” he added.
The National Privacy Week begins today Monday, January 25th and ends 28 January with 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.
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.
