The Data Protection Commission (DPC) yesterday announced the Global Data Day.
Worldwide, data subjects, data practitioners, and tech enthusiasts united to commemorate the day by bringing awareness to data protection and other privacy challenges and concerns that face the world.
Data Privacy Day was initiated by the Council of Europe to be held in 2007 as European Data Protection Day. Two years later, on January 26, 2009, the United States House of Representatives passed House Resolution HR 31 while the US Senate passed Senate Resolution 25 recognising January 28 as National Data Privacy Day. Subsequently, many other nations (including Ghana) have adopted the date and it has been internationally institutionalised.
In Ghana, this year’s celebration of the Data Privacy Day began a week ago with a media engagement session hosted by the commissioner, Ms. Patricia Adusei-Poku. The subsequent commemorative activities that were organised by the commission include press briefings, students and public engagements, radio and television interviews, as well as the maiden edition of “Converging Convos”. A workshop that was very recently created to address pressing issues related to the ever changing landscape of technology, innovation, and data protection. These and more were organised to educate and empower individuals on their rights as data subjects, to enable businesses to respect privacy and safeguard personal data, and to promote data protection best practices.
As the celebration continues, the commission would like to remind the data controllers and processors in Ghana that the Minister of Communications, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, exercised her powers (per Section 94 of the Data Protection Act 2012 (Act 843), to institute a six (6) month Section 97 AMNESTY. Thus, from October 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021, any applicable arrears will be waived allowing defaulting data controllers and processors to register with the commission and pay the current year’s fee due only. Failure to do so will cause defaulters to be non-compliant and will subject them to enforcement action including payment of all arrears going back to 2012 (where applicable).
It is the commission’s honour to protect personal data of the Ghanaian public and ensure that data controllers and processors comply with Data Protection Act (Act 843). Data Protection Commission continued focus is to ensure Transparency, Trust and Transformation in an ever increasingly digitised Ghana.
The Data Protection Commission is a statutory body established under the Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843) to protect the privacy of individuals and personal data by regulating the processing of personal information.