Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) has stressed the need for Federal government, to hasten the passage of Digital Rights Bill, which has been with the National Assembly for over eight years.
Making the call on Wednesday, the CITAD, executive director Alhaji Yunusa Zakiri Ya’u, said that the passage of the bill into law, would not only safeguard internet users, but would also curb rampant cases of fraudulent activities, data privacy, and protection.
Disclosing this at a two-day training on digital rights, protection mechanisms and online security tools for digital rights activists in Kano organised by CITAD in conjunction with Avocats San Frontieres France, Alhaji Ya’u noted that once the bill is legislated, it would assure us that our digital rights are coded and guaranteed.
He stated that the purpose of the gathering is to enhance the capacity of journalists, activists and lawyers, how they can remain online and also for them to identify threats as well as respond to that threat online.
He however added that though government had responded to one issue, which is data protection by signing it into law, which indicated that if one data protection is being violated, the person can report it to data protection agency for redress.
But that issue is a piecemeal approach to what Nigerians were yearning and calling for saying that what we were calling for is for government to quickly legislate on digital rights bill.
“What we were urging government for, is to scale up awareness for people, noting that when we were talking about the right to data, the subjects need to know that they equally have rights and be able to know when that right is breached
“The government needs to do a lot more, intern of awareness, intern of regulations, and make sure that it does not over-regulate because if government over-regulates, it also ends up breach of rights.
“We want government to balance out regulations by ensuring the promotion and protection of people’s rights”.
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