The Senior Special Adviser to the President on Information and Communication Technology [ICT], Lanre Osibona, has disclosed that the present government has put strategic measures in place to harmonize all silo identity agencies in the country.
Osibona disclosed this, while delivering a keynote address at the Lagos Fintech Week.
He said there is an initiative in place by the federal government to set up an independent Data Protection Agency, that will take care of all national identity. “This is currently in the National Assembly for final adoption before being signed into law,” he added.
This also includes FEC’s approval of the Strategic Roadmap for Harmonisation of all silo identity agencies developed Data Protection and Privacy Bill to ensure trust between the government and citizens.
He added that the government has upgraded the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) technology in order to scale the number of records it can hold and work with a number of stakeholders, including the private sector to develop a strategy for e-commerce in the digital economy.
“Nigeria cannot afford to lose out in leveraging the opportunities that the digital economy is bringing. We must work together in developing policies and regulations that will address challenges of data sovereignty, data ownership and commercialisation of data,” he said.
Currently, different agencies of government, including some private entities have in silo database of all that deal with them, thereby creating confusion in some cases.