Mr Gbenga Sesan, the Executive Director, Paradigm Initiative, a Non-Profit Organisation, on Wednesday said that data privacy awareness in Nigeria was still very low.
Sesan said this during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.
Citing recent data by the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC), he said that internet penetration rate in Nigeria stood at 45.5 per cent with 103.0 million internet users as of January 2024.
He noted that this statistic highlighted the need for increased data awareness, as a significant portion of the population remained offline.
Sesan said that there was a need for more or a lot of awareness and this awareness could not be done by government alone.
He said awareness had to be created by organisations and individuals, adding that everybody needed to become more aware of their data privacy.
According to the Paradigm Initiative boss, people need to be aware first of all that there is a law that protects them.
‘’I know that the agency in charge has to distill it and bring it down into consumable details.
‘’Before that happens, make sure that you just find some 15 minutes to read up about what your rights are.
‘’Everyone needs to know what their data rights are in Nigeria, so that if they go somewhere and they are asked for data that they are not supposed to ask for, you will know,’’ he said.
According to Sesan, beyond that, it is also important for Nigerians to be able to seek redress when something goes wrong.
He said that if somebody misused one’s information, one could report, adding that there was a platform that had been set up exclusively for that purpose called Ripoti.
‘’If you go to RIPOTI dot Africa, you can report there, and you will get free legal support to help you make sure that whoever has offended by misusing your data will be brought to book,’’ he said.
NAN reports that Paradigm Initiative is a non-profit organisation that builds an ICT-enabled support system to advocate for digital rights and inclusion across Africa.