Moves To Safeguard Digital Right Of Nigerians
Group under the auspices of Accountability Lab has expressed dissatisfaction over the rising spate of internet shutdown across Africa and the world at large.
The Lab’s country director, Odeh Friday, stated this yesterday in Abuja during a Digital Rights Innovation Lab Meeting put together by Spaces for Change, Accountability Lab Nigeria, National Data Protection Commission, Paradigm Initiative Nigeria and National Endowment for Democracy.
“We are thinking through what has happened over internet governance, internet shutdown over Africa, all over the world. How can our rights be protected? How can we ensure that the government also stands for us? We want national unity but we need to build a foundation on truths.
“We look at the tools young people are using in terms of digital tools and how they can also thrive in our society. So, we are also thinking about what this means for us as citizens and how the government can support us”, Odey stated.
Identifying the digital space as the major platforms where youths can thrive and make meaningful contributions to societal growth and development, Odeh called for government support.
According to him, the objective of the Digital Rights Innovation Lab was to engage government regulators to advance democratic digital rights norms and frameworks while safeguarding online freedom of expression and information.
He said that the meeting was also convened to foster collaborative discussions and cooperation on critical reforms in the space of data protection and digital governance to government officials on best practices for upholding digital rights and data privacy.
Also speaking, Head, Innovation Unit, Data Protection Commission, Chiderah Ike-Okonkwo, who regretted that the data protection privacy was still nascent in Nigeria, disclosed that citizens’ privacy was under threat because of issues of censorship and issues with social media platforms where people exchange personal information for services.
Ike-Okonkwo who argued that the country is in dire need of a strong data protection rules like the Nigeria Data Protection Act to enhance data management practices, stressed the need to invest in research and developments as well as allocation of resources to foster innovation in the development of technologies.
“Basically, data flows from one jurisdiction to another. We signed up on various platforms that utilizes Personnel Information. And this holds such significant power over our daily interactions it is therefore important that we have these kinds of engagements to underscore the urgency and significance of digital rights innovation, particularly when it comes to privacy and data right protection which is the corner stone of individual freedom as enshrined under section 37 of the constitution.”
On his part, Accountability Lab Project Officer, Shiiwua Mnenga, disclosed that the body was looking for an innovative opportunity to sensitize people and create a collaborative approach towards pushing the understanding of the Nigerian data protection to the citizens and to engage relevant stakeholders, the civil society organizations and the private sector to create awareness about the Act and protect the rights of citizens.
“Why this is important is because if we look at laws like you know the laws in the past, we discovered that if there are no awareness or no efforts has made in protecting this rights. The tendency to violate them is very high.
“So there is need to engage on it to ensure that the security agencies comply with the provisions of the Act and ensuring that the rights of the citizens are protected, as well as making citizens to understand what actually constitute their data, because that is the starting point.”
