On the issue of the purported threat by Meta, the developers of WhatsApp to terminate WhatsApp services in Nigeria on account of FCCPC Nigeria financial sanction over their breach of Nigeria’s data privacy law, the Nigeria Data Privacy Regulations, I want to bear my mind as follows:
- Countries all over the world have one form of law or the other that regulates how personal data of their citizens are used by the tech companies.
- In protecting the right of their citizens to the safety of their personal information, these countries enforce sanctions of varying degree against companies that violate these laws.
- European Union specifically has the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a European Union (EU) law that governs how personal data can be processed and transferred for individuals in the EU and the European Economic Area. The GDPR was first published on April 27, 2016, and is a key part of EU privacy and human rights law.
- Nigeria’s data privacy regulations include the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation 2019 (NDPR) and the Data Protection Act (DPA).
- The NDPR provides legal safeguards for the processing of personal data. Under the NDPR, Personal Data must be processed in accordance with a specific, legitimate, and lawful purpose consented to by the Data Subject.
- The fact Nigeria is a developing country should not give fillip to tech companies to take advantage of our learning process to violate our data privacy laws.
- Meta for Business must ensure its use of personal data of Nigerians conform with the laws governing personal data use in Nigeria, and in doing so, should not come with a threat.
- I am totally in support of the action taken by FCCPC Nigeria against Meta in this regard.
- Nigeria is Africa’s largest market for any tech company. We should be proud of our bargaining power with our population.
- A reasonable tech company cannot push Nigeria aside.
Destiny Young, a Technology Infrastructure, Cybersecurity and IT Ops Engineer, writes from Uyo
