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The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) is partnering with Airtel Nigeria to provide digital literacy platforms and National Data Protection Regulation (NDPR) awareness as joint Corporate Social Responsibilities (CSR) by the two bodies.
Director General of NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, proposed this initiative while receiving the new Managing Director/CEO of Airtel, Mr. Surendran Chemmenkotil and his management team during a courtesy visit to NITDA in Abuja.
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Abdullahi explained that NITDA’s regulation is not to stifle innovation or to be a constraint to businesses but to level the field for innovations to thrive.
His words: “IT is dynamic, it is changing; new things are coming; we must be innovative in the way we regulate because our regulation is not to put unnecessary stumbles in the business environment but to make it easier.
“Government’s role in business is to intervene in terms of policy, infrastructure in the unserved and underserved communities. We all know the key role data plays today and what is happening globally around campaign on data privacy, surveillance capitalism and so on.”
The NITDA’s boss said that data collection was not enough but how the data is utilised matter the most.
“The focus on data privacy is to let people be conscious and have ethical values with the realization that these data belong to human being and should be adequately protected.”
Abdullahi stressed the need for data literacy for people across sectors.
“We are doing a lot around digital literacy and digital entrepreneurship, that enables the use of digital devices to increase revenue for the data providers,” he said.
The agency’s Director of Finance, Mr. Ibrahim Umar, commended Airtel for its compliance in remitting its annual levy of 1% profit before tax to the Information Technology Fund that is usually collected by the Federal Inland Revenue Services.
In his speech, the National Commissioner, Nigerian Data Protection Bureau (NDPB), Dr. Vincent Olatunji, affirmed that the issue of data is key globally, he added, “there is hardly anything we can do now without going online. Every aspect of our life is being digitized and the core of it is data.
“The Federal Government of Nigeria recognizes this many years back, but a major step was taken in 2019 when the NDPR was issued.
“We are glad to say that Airtel is one of the companies that has consistently complied with regulations, and we really commend you for this,” said Olatunji.
According to him, NDPR gave birth to the Bureau.
“Mr. President graciously approved the creation of the Bureau based on the recommendation of the Honourable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, about three weeks ago,” added Olatunji while he noted that stakeholders would be seeing a lot of actions from the Bureau soon especially in area of capacity building which is key to the development of IT.
He advised Airtel to have its data protection team that would oversee data and advise management on what to do in terms of awareness, capacity, organizational and technological measures that need to put in place, to ensure that the data of Nigerians are adequately protected.
Chemmenkotil expressed confidence that the partnership will help to further deepen awareness and capacity on the administration of the NDPR. He assured of Airtel’s willingness to work with NITDA and the new national bureau on data.
