Uche Obi’s passion for data protection

An IT expert, Uche Obi, has established a tech platform, The Privacy Academy, to create awareness and advocate for data protection.

According to Obi, the move was inspired by the need to illuminate the privacy sector, which is still emerging in Nigeria.

He told Society Plus, “Data protection is an emerging discipline with few professionals, hence the idea of the academy is to offer courses for professionals in the sector.

“A lot of work needs to be done in terms of awareness, advocacy and skill acquisition to give this field exposure. Being a specialised field, people coming into the space need to be trained in data protection, privacy laws and other areas.”

The Director of Academy, Olumide Babalola, also stated that the objective of the academy was to build a community of data professionals, develop a bespoke curriculum, boost professionalism and standardise data protection.

He said, “It is quite unfortunate that the only existing certificate-issuing academy on privacy is in Europe.  This academy is set up to fill that gap. It will award compliant certification, so that professionals can be certified in Nigerian law, not European data protection.”

Babalola also called for a speedy passage of the data protection bill, adding that the existing Nigerian Data Protection Regulations was not comprehensive enough.

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