Effective Data Protection in Nigeria: Challenges

Abstract

The importance of protecting data and privacy cannot be overemphasized in this day of technological and digital breakthroughs. Nigeria, a developing nation, is prone to suffering from the shortcomings of conventional methods of data protection as well as from the cost of insufficient legislation to secure the data or the privacy of the data users. This has brought up a number of issues, including the applicability and responsiveness of current laws and how it tends to handle or manage violations. It is imperative to address these issues and challenges faced by data and privacy protection in Nigeria, given the complexity of the emerging data technology and the privacy challenges posed by the use and retention of data. The paper identified the lack of a comprehensive data protection legislation as well as their non-enforcement as the main barrier to effective data protection in the country. In order to solve some of the issues affecting effective data privacy in Nigeria, this paper proffers cogent and practical recommendations.