Seven banks, other institutions fined over ₦200 million for data privacy violations

The National Commissioner of Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC), Dr Vincent Olatunji made this reveal while meeting reporters at the Commission’s headquarters in Abuja after the President, Bola Tinubu signed the data protection act into law.

With the recent increase in data breaches, the new legislation aims to provide a legal framework to control personal information in the country.

Due to privacy breaches, some customers have been affected and have either lost cash or their personal identity to hackers.

The new legislation intends to provide a more rigorous framework for securing personal information and making it more private so that hackers and other unscrupulous elements do not have access to personal information.

Although it was confirmed that seven banks were held responsible and made to pay the fines, the National Commissioner, however, did not reveal the identities of the erring financial institutions.

He confirmed that within the past year, over 100 private sector institutions have been in their investigative net for various degrees of data privacy violations.

Chief Executive Officers of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) have also been warned that they would be held responsible and will be prosecuted if any such data privacy breach is traced to their institutions.