The executive vice-chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, Aminu Maida, has urged Nigerians to understand their data rights to avoid exploitation.

Mr Maida made the call during the signing of a memorandum of understanding between NCC and the Nigerian Data Protection Commission on Thursday in Abuja.

He said that data protection was key to the country’s sovereignty.

“Somebody is monetising your data. But it will get to a point where  you should also have your rights to either agree or disagree on the usage,” Mr Maida explained. “You are laying the foundations whereby people have a right to govern their own data. In future, we are going to be moving away from labour unions to data unions.”

Mr Maida further said that such foundations would prepare individuals to be aware of the data they generate and to know their rights regarding that data.

“If they do not know it, somebody will monetise it. So when they say you are using the platform for free, it is not really free,” he said.

In his address, the national commissioner of the NDPC, Vincent Olatunji, said that the partnership on data privacy and protection within the telecom sector could not be done without the NCC.

“How do we properly situate data privacy and protection within the telecom sector? We cannot do it without you. It is your mandate.

“That is why we started this process, to see how we can work together to properly support you in regulating the sector from the privacy perspective,’’ Mr Olatunji said.

According to him, the only way to effectively do what is right for the country and the people is to combine expertise and skills in data privacy with those of regulating the sector.

“This MoU is to see how we can effectively work together on privacy and protection of the data of all Nigerians, as well as have data with controllers and processors,” he said.

(NAN)