The Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) said it has increased the licence fee for data protection compliance organizations (DPCOs) to N2 million from N50,000 to ensure that only serious organizations can apply for the licence from now on.
The National Commissioner of the Commission, Dr. Vincent Olatunji, disclosed this on Wednesday during a meeting with the licensed DPCOs in Lagos.
DPCOs are companies licensed as data protection professionals to guide organizations handling Nigerians’ data, otherwise referred to as data processors and controllers, to comply with the Nigeria Data Protection Act (NDPA).
According to the Commission, there are over 500,000 data controllers and processors in Nigeria.
Licence revocation
The NDPC Commissioner further disclosed that many of the DPCOs that acquired the licence at N50,000 have not been functioning as they should, hence there has been low registration of data controllers.
He said this led to the revocation of 19 licences last year, noting that more licences may still be revoked this year as the Commission is continually evaluating the performance of the licensees. According to him, there are currently 291 licensed DPCOs.
“Last year, we revoked 19 licences and we may revoke more this year as we evaluate their performance.
“With the increment in licence fee, what we are saying is that if you don’t have any business coming to register as a DPCO, you don’t have to come because you are paying just N50,000.
“Increasing the licence fee to N2 million is a way of screening those who are willing to do business in this sector. It means that those who will apply for the licence are people who are ready for business,” Olatunji said.
Compliance with data protection law
While noting that the level of compliance with the data protection law in Nigeria is still low, the NDPC boss said there has been an improvement. According to him, in the first year, only 622 audit reports were received from data controllers.
“Now, we are doing over 3,000 which is commendable, but the number of data controllers that we are expecting to register should not be less than 100,00 and that is even about 20% compliance because we have over 500,000 data controllers in Nigeria.
“So the level of compliance is still very low, we need to bring more controllers on board. Our mission is to build a culture of data protection compliance in Nigeria, where we do not have to run after you before you comply,” he said.
Also speaking during the meeting, the President of the Institute of Information Management (IIM), Dr Oyedokun Oyewole, said that the data protection industry is still emerging.
The IIM was recently licensed by the NDPC to conduct examinations and certify data protection professionals in Nigeria.
He said part of the challenges faced by DPCOs had to do with a lack of adequate awareness, adding that a good number of stakeholders in the ecosystem were yet to understand the importance of deepening data protection.
He added that the NDPC also needs to intensify efforts to create more awareness so that citizens can also understand the importance of data privacy in the increasingly digitized world.
What you should know
The annual data protection report released by the NDPC earlier this year revealed that activities in the country’s data protection industry created a total of 10,123 jobs for Nigerians in 2023.
- According to the NDPC, the number of jobs created in 2023 was a 5.7% increase when compared with the 9,577 jobs created in 2022.
- NDPC added that compliance revenue also increased to N325 million against N94.4 billion in 2022, while the number of verified Data Protection Officers increased from 1, 928 in 2022 to 1,955 in 2023. It said the number of investigations rose from 117 in 2022 to 177 in 2023, among others.
- The Commission also revealed that the 2023 data protection cumulative revenue rose to N6.2 billion as against N5.5 billion in 2022.
- The report stated that other areas that the rates increased included Compliance Audit Report which recorded 3,451 reports from 2022 to 2023, against 1,864 from 2020 to 2021.