FG move to regulate abuse of data generation

Ahead of the increasing generation of data due to the emergence of technologies in the 4th industrial revolution, the federal government has said it would set up regulatory policies to forestall the abuse of data generation. Minister for Communication and Technology, Prof. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, stated this on Thursday at the annual Industry Stakeholders’ […]

Ahead of the increasing generation of data due to the emergence of technologies in the 4th industrial revolution, the federal government has said it would set up regulatory policies to forestall the abuse of data generation.

Minister for Communication and Technology, Prof. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, stated this on Thursday at the annual Industry Stakeholders’ Forum on Emerging Technologies and tagged ‘Regulatory Roadmap for Internet of Things (IOT) Ecosystem in Nigeria’.

 Pantami said the emergence of technologies such as IoT, virtual reality, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) would lead to exponential data generation, hence the need for regulation.

The minister revealed that data being generated within 48 hours today is equated to the data generated for 5,000 years, up to 2003. These, he said, could be abused in the absence of a regulatory approach. 

 He posited that according to International Data Corporation (IDC), there would be about 46.1billions of IoT devices that would be interconnected globally by 2025, thus, increasing the probability of data to be generated up to 79.4zettabytes.

“So if you look at the data being generated today, it’s a huge one and by 2025, that will increase. We have exponential growth of data today and this is being driven by IOT, which is why there is a need for the regulatory institutions to be proactive. We try to brainstorm, organise stakeholders’ engagement, come up with governmental regulatory instruments that will make the sector successful and when data is generated, we make sense out of it,” he said.

 Pantanmi described IoT as part of the fourth industrial revolution being driven by emerging technologies, adding that the regulatory approach in Nigeria from 2019 till date, based on the National Digital Economy policy and strategy for a digital Nigeria, is a developmental regulation.

 He further stated that Nigeria has made its regulatory approach flexible so as not to restrict unnecessarily the development of the sector, but to support development. “In all sense of humility, we could be the first country to come up with a regulation that has been titled as developmental regulation. This is just to provide an enabling environment for the sector to continue to grow, not to restrict unnecessarily as it is being found in other places,”

 Also, the Executive Director of Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, assured that the commission will not rest on it oars to ensure that it meets with the global standard of the emerging technologies.

“Whenever there is new technology, we want to regulate, we set in motion a process of engagement, so as to hear from experts in the industry,” he said. 

Pantami had during the forum unveiled two of his recently published books titled ‘Datafication of Society to Foster an Internet Economy’, which was reviewed virtually by the Secretary General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Houlin Zhao, and ‘Cybersecurity Initiatives for Securing a Country’ reviewed by the President of International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP), Professor Mike Hinchey.

From Christiana T. Alabi & Yvonne Ugwuezuoha, Lagos