Patricia Adusei-Poku granting an interview to the media
The Ghana Data Protection Commission (DPC)
in collaboration with the Network of African Data Protection Authorities is set
to host major stakeholders within the data protection sector at the first
Africa Data Protection and Privacy Conference which will open on June 26, 2019.
The two day conference which will be held
at the International Conference Centre in Accra is expected to bring together
established authorities in Africa and the Global North to discuss best
practices, and high level strategic content aimed at promoting Africa’s Drive
for Data Protection and Privacy laws.
There will be a special focus on
contemporary national and global issues such as the alignment between the
privacy and Right to information, artificial intelligence and the ethics of
processing, third party contractors and safeguarding of national databases
among other issues.
Expected participants include
representatives from the Africa Union (AU), Council of Europe, African
Telecommunications Union and the Economic Community of West African States
(ECOWAS).
Others are the Economic Community of
Central African States (ECCAS), European Commission (EU), United Nations
Special Rapporteur on Rights to Privacy, among others.
Speaking at a media engagement session in
Accra on June 12, 2019, the Executive Director of DPC, Patricia Adusei-Poku encouraged local
institutions to take advantage of the opportunity to participate and learn
about privacy and data protection.
She also called on the public to challenge
the status quo by demanding data protection compliance from data controllers
who keep sensitive data about the public.
She said that the ability of heads of data
controlling institutions to comply with data protection laws should be regarded
as a critical area of competence needed to access the integrity of institutions
in fulfilling their obligations to customers and clients.
The Deputy Minister of Communications,
Vincent Odotei Sowah for his part said that the permeating nature of electronic
communication has warranted the need for government to safeguard the data of
users of such technologies.
“Data has become very valuable to the
extent that there are people who thrive on mining and disseminating data illegally
to the detriment of organisations” he said.
He also emphasised the need for awareness creation in order to sensitise the public on the handling of data and the mandate of the DPC as a body that is to receive complaints of citizens whose data have been misused or abused.
By Issah Mohammed
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