ABUJA - The federal government at the weekend said it is committed to upholding the data privacy of Nigerians as enshrined in the Nigeria Data Protection Regulations (NDPR) in 2019.
The Honourable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami in a statement signed on his behalf by his technical assistant on information technology, Dr Femi Adeluyi said it was not comfortable with the updated privacy policy of the WhatsApp messaging application as concerns the planned usage of information of Nigerians by third parties.
The Policy states that WhatsApp will share information about the users on their platform with their parent company (Facebook), as well as other Facebook companies.
The information includes user phone numbers, “transaction data, service-related information, information on how you interact with others (including businesses) when using our Services, mobile device information, your IP address”.
Furthermore, WhatsApp has indicated that users who refuse to accept their revised privacy policy risk not being able to use the service at all.
The Minister who said the government would engage with Facebook, the owner of WhatsApp on the updated policy which would soon take effect said, “We are also aware that the European region is exempt from the provisions of the updated Policy and it is also being challenged in a number of countries.
“The Honourable Minister has therefore directed the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), as the Regulator of the Information Technology sector, to engage vigorously with Facebook to understand the processes, level of security, etc of the data of Nigerian users in order to ensure that Policies proposed for Nigeria strictly adhere to the provisions of NDPR.
“Nigerians can be assured that the federal government will give uttermost attention to the privacy of their data, in line with the NDPR and the National Digital Economy Policy for a Digital Nigeria,” the statement added.
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