The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has established partnership with AIRTEL Nigeria, to provide digital literacy and ensure data protection in the country.
The partnership was part of the organisations’ joint corporate social responsibility, to ensure that the National Data Protection Regulation (NDPR) was implemented.
The Director- General of NITDA, Mr Kashifu Inuwa, while receiving the Managing Director of AIRTEL Nigeria, Mr Surendran Chemmenkotil in Abuja, said the partnership would promote digital skills among citizens.
Inuwa said the NDPR was not established to stifle innovation but to promote the implementation of digital literacy, a target of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, which projected 95 per cent digital literacy by 2030.
“NITDA’s regulation is not to stifle innovation or to be a constraint to businesses but to level the field for innovations to thrive.
“IT is dynamic, it is changing, new things are coming and 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,” he said.
He said that government’s role in businesses was to intervene in terms of policy, infrastructure in the unserved and underserved communities.
According to him, it is not only about collecting data but how it is utilised.
“The focus on data privacy is to allow people to be conscious and have ethical values, with the realisation that these data belong to human beings and should be adequately protected.”
He told the AIRTEL team that the agency had lots of initiatives targeted at igniting activities in the technology ecosystem, to create more demand for AIRTEL services.
“We are doing a lot around digital literacy and digital entrepreneurship that enables the use of digital devices to increase revenue for data providers.”
He stated that NITDA was focused on bringing innovation into traditional, as well as emerging resources, identify new market and create non consumer market values.
”So that there would be shared incentives that will keep both parties in business,” Inuwa said.
Earlier, Chemmenkotil commended the agency on its regulations and initiatives toward citizens’ data protection in the country.
He said that AIRTEL would continue to comply with the requirements of data protection regulations for better service delivery.
Also, the National Commissioner, Nigerian Data Protection Bureau (NDPB), Dr Vincent Olatunji, commended AIRTEL for being one of the companies that had consistently complied with data regulations.
Olatunji promised that with the creation of the Bureau recently, stakeholders would witness impacts especially in the area of capacity building, which was key to the development of IT.
He stressed that data protection was a global issue, hence advised AIRTEL to have its data protection team to oversee data and advise management on what to do in terms of awareness, capacity, organisational and technological measures.
He urged the AIRTEL management to report any breach in data protection to the Bureau within 72 hours.
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