Stakeholders in the Nigerian technology sector at the Ennovators Breakfast Series (EBS) forum held in Lagos have called on government to enact data privacy law to protect consumers’ personal information.
The EBS forum observed that the “careless manners” that identity enrollment is implemented by several government agencies and telecoms companies is a threat that can compromise identities of millions of Nigerians.
This is one of the key takeaways of the EBS Forum that also drew attention to the growing trends where “companies around the world have evolved necessary legal framework and regulations to unleash the potential of the data processing market.”
The EBS Forum on the theme “Identity is the New Money” is a quarterly breakfast event specially designed for the “Dreamers, Drivers and Doers (3Ds) of technology business in financial services industry across Africa.”[quote font=”georgia” font_size=”22″ font_style=”italic” align=”right” bgcolor=”#” color=”#” bcolor=”#” arrow=”yes”]According to the resolution of the EBS Fourm, personal data or identity of people is key to economic development in various sector including security, financial services and public governance with stakeholders observing that “Nigeria is arguably the country with largest number of silos identity enrollment schemes and yet it cannot identify its citizens.”[/quote]
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According to the resolution of the EBS Fourm, personal data or identity of people is key to economic development in various sector including security, financial services and public governance with stakeholders observing that “Nigeria is arguably the country with largest number of silos identity enrollment schemes and yet it cannot identify its citizens.”
Commenting on the event outcomes, Mr Sola Fanawopo, the EBS Event Director, further explains that Nigeria lacks the legal framework on data privacy law “to unleash the potential of the data process industry.”
According to him, added to this, the Constitution empowers several government agencies to do identity enrollments and these have led to duplication of identity databases across the Ministry Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
Other parts of the resolution by EBS was that the government should encourage the establishment of identity brokerage services, “banker for data” or “ISP for identity services”, and that government should make life easy for consumers of ID services by promoting the concept of “Connect to One, Connect to All”.
The document also called on government and stakeholders in ID management industry to allow evolution of standards for security, dispute resolution, and un-traceability or un-deniability of ID.
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