Pan-African Digital Rights and Inclusion organisation, Paradigm Initiative hosted a civil society webinar on Nigeria’s draft data protection bill and launched a new report on Digital Rights and Privacy in Nigeria.
The report which explores the state of digital rights and privacy in Nigeria details the political and policy environment, practices, and stakeholders around digital rights and privacy in Nigeria. Building on previous annual reports on Nigeria and Africa by Paradigm Initiative, the report recommends a review of certain regulations by Nigeria’s Communications Commission to include judicial and public accountability in order to address the potential for abuse and abuses occasioned by the politics of regime preservation. Other recommendations in the report include a call for the passage of the digital rights and freedom bill and the data protection bill, the repeal and re-enactment of the cybercrimes act 2015, and a public education campaign to raise the awareness of citizens on data protection.
While speaking on the report and the webinar, Adeboye Adegoke, Senior Program Manager at Paradigm Initiative said “Given the work that we do, part of our advocacy objectives is to ensure that the development of digital policy receives quality inputs from us. Our focus is clear in this regard; rights, inclusion, and innovation”. “We will advocate against draft legislation/policy that seeks to limit rights, stifle innovation or widen access gaps and we will support those who seek to promote access, rights, and innovation.”
The Chief Operating Officer at Paradigm Initiative, Nnenna Paul-Ugochukwu in her remarks recognised that PIN represents a lot of other voices within the civil society space and this explains why the webinar and the report launch were held together, to present the organisation’s research output and to capture the views of other civil society organisations in its submission to the Federal government on the draft data protection bill.
For more information about this statement, please contact media@paradigmhq.org
Link to the report: https://paradigmhq.org/download/digital-rights-and-privacy-in-nigeria/