The Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) says officials from 17 countries have visited Nigeria in the last two years to learn from its data protection regulatory experience.

The national commissioner, NDPC, Vincent Olatunji, said this had made Nigeria a model for Data Protection Authorities in Africa and beyond.

He said this in Abuja on Monday during the inauguration of the commission’s new headquarters.

Mr Olatunji said the development reflected the commission’s transformation from a small data protection unit under the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) into a full-fledged DPA with growing international recognition.

“We are now a model among DPAs across the globe, to the extent that DPAs in different countries are now coming to learn from us. We have had about 17 countries visit the commission in the last two years, while engagements with other international data protection authorities are still ongoing,” he said.

According to him, the NDPC has signed 28 memoranda of understanding with regulators, development partners and data protection authorities in many countries, including Canada, Morocco, Liberia, Kenya and Ghana.

Mr Olatunji said the commission also received recognition for its work in Africa and was nominated for three awards at the Global Privacy Assembly, scheduled for November in Brussels. He described the international recognition as a significant achievement for an institution that began as a small data protection unit under NITDA.

“When we started this commission, we had a seed in our hands which we planted, watered and nurtured. It grew and has blossomed to what we are witnessing here today,” he said.

Mr Olatunji said the Nigerian Data Protection Regulation (NDPR) was issued in January 2019, while the Nigeria Data Protection Act (NDPA) was signed into law by President Bola Tinubu on June 12, 2023. He said the legislation provided the commission with the legal and institutional framework to regulate data protection and strengthen privacy rights in Nigeria.

According to him, the commission has grown from three rooms at NITDA to five rooms in Maitama, 20 rooms in Asokoro, and now operates from a 56-office headquarters.

He said 98 per cent of the commission’s staff were certified data protection officers, while 356 Data Protection Compliance Organisations (DPCOs) had been licensed under its public-private partnership model.

Mr Olatunji said the commission’s activities and those of its licensed DPCOs had created more than 27,000 jobs within three years. He said that more than 66,000 people had been onboarded through the commission’s virtual privacy academy, while over 220 training programmes had reached more than 90,000 participants across various sectors.

He said DPCOs had generated more than N12 billion in revenue within three years, while the wider data protection ecosystem was valued at more than N18 billion.

The commissioner said the NDPC had also established 17 data privacy clubs in universities, with 6,176 student ambassadors, and had reached more than 250,000 people through various data protection engagements.

He described the newly commissioned headquarters as the largest data protection office in Africa, adding that work was ongoing on the commission’s Lagos office, which would be commissioned before the end of the year.

(NAN)