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