By Dele Ogbodo
The National Commissioner for Nigerian Data Protection Commission, NDPC, Dr. Vincent Olatunji has called on journalists to get certified and to explore the vast opportunities the profession avails them as data processors.
Addressing members of the Nigeria Information Technology Reporters Association (NITRA) during a courtesy call in his office led by its President, Mr. Blessing Olaifa, at the Commission’ corporate office in Abuja, he said: this year, we have some plans for your members of the media adding: “We want to be trained as data processing officers (DPSs) and get certified and when you do that, your job will be waiting for you.”
The visit to his office, headed is is a continuation of our relationship, the media plays a critical role in the society and I do not take your role for granted.
He said: “I remember meeting with your colleagues in Lagos and you people thereafter and I promised to train you which we did as a way of building your capacity.
“We are aware of the freedom of expression granted to you, press by the constitution but we felt that it is important to train you to understand that part. I see this collaboration as a continuous thing, more importantly, now everything is changing, we need to deepen your knowledge on data privacy.
“Our number two agenda is awareness. We can not do awareness under this building, we need media to assist us to disseminate this information so that people can comply with the data protection policies.
“Another area of interest for us is collaboration. We are working with MDAs and have even signed MoU with some of them. Anybody that is a data subject or that gathers data is within our scope.
“It will equally interest you that we are working with Committee of Vice Chancellors to further deepen this knowledge about data protection, we are also working with NBTE for Polytechnics and many others.”
According to him, all these efforts are geared towards ensuring that the message of data protection is spread.There is virtually nothing we can do without you.
On taking career in data management, he added that when it is combined with knowledge journalism, you have an advantage more than other data processing officers, adding that it is a huge ecosystem that has one or two things for everybody to benefit. So, we need to collaborate and ensure you catch up with the changes in data privacy ecosystem.
NDPC Legal Adviser, Barr. Babatunde Bamgboye, in a remark, said: “You operate in an industry that always infringe on privacy rights in many ways, in the sense that yours is about freedom of expression and ours is about protecting the privacy of the rights of the people.
“Even as you report our activities, it is also important for you to learn some emerging ethics. You need to balance your rights and privacy of the individuals.”
The President of NITRA, Mr. Blessing Olaifa, also in a remark, said: “Our visit is a follow up on the one we made in 2022. We raised a lot of issues then and we can see that you have acted on some while some are yet to be acted upon.
“We want to congratulate you on your appointment by President Bola Tinubu, it is a measure of your hard work and tenacity for the industry growth, and commitment you have had over the years, especially while in NITDA.
“We also congratulate you on the passage of the NDPC Act that has given you the impetus to operate in a way that everybody now know and itching to know more about data”
On sensitization of the sector, he said, before now, people were not much familiar and interested in data, some thought it was only data in their phones but now know is all about information they give about themselves to institutions, adding: “So, we want to commend you on some of these things you have taken up in recent times and achieved.