DATA PRIVACY PROTECTION: OVERVIEW OF THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK IN NIGERIA

Abstract

The privacy of individuals has always been under attack from both the excessive exercise of the right to free speech, and the commercialization of personal data of celebrities (especially) and ordinary people, alike. However, the advent of the internet introduced easy and cheap means of accessing, caching and transmitting data; thus, placing the attacks on privacy rights on steroids. This paper interrogates the available legal frameworks for the protection of the privacy right in Nigeria. It addresses the issues of how extensive and how effective these legal frameworks are in the protection of data privacy in Nigeria. In researching this paper, such, analytical tools as, meta-analytical style doctrinal comparisons, overt and covert interviews, including resort to both primary and secondary sources of law, were deployed. This paper establishes that Nigeria boasts of fairly adequate laws for the protection of the privacy of individuals and groups of individuals, but that there also exist substantive loopholes that need to be plugged through amendments and proactivity, to keep pace with the fast-paced sphere of the internet. It summarizes that the ease of acquiring, storing and disseminating data in the internet era is a clear and present danger to the protection of data privacy. Finally, it thus recommends the plugging of the existing loopholes in the existing legal frameworks for the protection of personal data. It also recommends the maintenance of a relentless vigil to spot new gaps in the existing Nigerian legal frameworks, in order to keep up with developments in the ever dynamic world of the internet.