With the recent introduction of “The Privacy Academy” by Privacy Network and Academy Limited, the movement to standardize data protection received a boost.
The Academy’s chairman, Mr. Uche Val Obi, indicated that the decision was motivated by the desire to enhance knowledge in the privacy field, which is still developing in current environment.
Obi emphasized that both organizations, people, and scholars stand to gain a lot from the offers of the academy, which holds its first class for the associate degree between July 5 and July 6, 2023.
He said that data protection was an emerging discipline with few professionals, hence the idea of the academy to provide professional course in different status which included associate, membership and fellowship.
He said, “A lot of works in terms of awareness, advocacy and skills deepening is needed to give this area exposure. Being a specialised field, people coming into the space needs to be trained, hence the academy initiative.
The Privacy Academy was created with the goal of creating a community of data professionals, creating a unique and tailored curriculum, enhancing professionalism, and standardizing data security, according to the academy’s director, Olumide Babalola.
He claimed that Nigeria was still lacking a privacy institution that could issue standardized certificates.
“It is quite unfortunate that the only existing certificate issuing academy on privacy is in Europe. Our academy set up exists to fill this gap. This academy will churn out Nigeria compliant certification mechanism so professionals can be certified in Nigeria law and not European data protection”, he said.
He also demanded that the data protection bill be passed quickly, arguing that the current Nigerian Data Protection Regulations (NDPR) were not a fundamental piece of legislation and were insufficiently thorough.
