Isa Pantami, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy told a conference of Ministers attending the Future Tech Forum in London on Tuesday that the security of citizens’ data in the country is a constitutional necessity, not just secondary legislation.

Uwa Suleiman, the Minister’s spokesman, revealed this in a statement released to the media on Wednesday.

Pantami, who spoke at the session headlined, ‘The Future Of Trust In Data, A Force For Good,’ revealed that the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation 2019 is in full force to establish trust between the people and the government, with non-compliance carrying harsh penalties, according to the statement.

The Minister said in the statement, “Nigeria already has some policies in place to ensure the protection of citizens’ data and to also build trust between government and citizens. There is also subsidiary legislation called the guidelines for processing personal data which gives impetus to the NDPR and assurance of confidentiality to citizens. Thirdly, the government also invested in creating awareness among the citizenry to enable understanding of both the regulation and government’s willingness to adhere to the dictates of law regarding confidentiality.”

Prior to the NDPR of 2019, he added, the Cybercrimes Act of 2015 allowed for “lawful intercept which is only effected when a security institution establishes a Prima Facie case of a crime, otherwise, the confidentiality of citizens communications and correspondences are guaranteed. The Federal Government of Nigeria has further engaged the services of Data Protection Compliance officers (DPCOs) to further create awareness and serve as middlemen between the government and aggrieved citizens in addressing breaches where they may occur.”

Data collection, according to the Minister, was critical in assisting the government’s proactive approach to contain and manage the COVID 19 threat in Nigeria.

Ministers from the United States of America (USA), China, Korea, Kenya, Japan, Sweden, Senegal, the European Union, Canada, and Singapore, among others, were in attendance.