Lack of PIS Law, Threat to SIM Registration – Experts

Lack of appropriate national legislature on personal information security (PIS) to back up on-going nationwide telecom SIM card registration may spell doom for the entire programme, experts in the records and information management sector have warned, Nigeria CommunicationsWeek can report. Oyewale Oyedokun, president of records and information management awareness foundation, (RIMA Foundation) said during the first 2012 quarterly RFK Foundation training workshop in Lagos that it was wrong for the government to embark on information gathering from the citizenry without adequate structure in the form of personal information security law in place. Oyedokun noted that without the relevant legislative backing, it becomes a matter of legal conjecture. He opined that it was apparent a number of Nigerians were wary of registering their mobile SIM card because of the fear of the security of their personal data. “I wouldn’t blame whoever is skeptical about their data being collected, if you don’t have a framework or infrastructure in place and you are telling me to wholeheartedly submit my data, how sure am I that the data I release will be managed for the purpose it was collected. “Secondly, in terms of law and regulations, we do not have any law presently in Nigeria that addresses personal information management or security. In fact, it was wrong for the government to have started asking for information from the masses without first of all putting necessary infrastructure in place, because you cannot build a house in the air. There ought to have been structure in place to guarantee safety of the persons you are collecting information from,” said Oyedokun. Mrs. Yemisi Oyebo, head, document management and IT business improvement, First Bank of Nigeria plc, said such national legislature will not only go to assure the citizenry of the security of their data security and protection, it would also work in tandem with the recently signed freedom of information (FoI) law. She said that “A legislation on records and information management geared towards securing personal information will have a huge effect on the manner we manage information in its entirety, particularly within the confines of Nigeria.The import is evident on the grounds that policy is like a framework on which we can build. The policy will produce its own procedures for implementation. Although, information management is an evolving profession in Nigeria, but an adage says, a land without a law is without sin. “So, if there is no law on how we manage personal information declared in public sphere; a law that will protect the personality from unforeseen harm, people will continue to dump government and some of its programmes, especially when it has to do with data capturing. It will be an added advantage to the FoI law, hence principles don’t change. So, it will give us the proper template for records management. Because of the unavailability of the policy that ought to guarantee information security, people are skeptical on giving data, sometimes, they give wrong data for self protection,” Oyebo enthused. Folarin Fambegbe, director, Golden Scepter, a leading firm on records management in Nigeria, decried that concept of information management among Nigerians, saying “it is at its lowest ebb.” He stated that it was wrong for the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) to be collecting personal data of individuals without the necessary legislative framework, and for also not involving other relevant sectors of the economy the records management. “NCC was collecting those data for a purpose; they are in their own sector and needs to keep records of the people, but personal information cannot be shared without the request and that is where the legislation comes in,” said Fambegbe. Beady Nnanna, a television presenter regretted that despite NCC collecting citizens’ personal data for more than a year now, it was yet to inform Nigerians what the information would be used for. “Some people might have knowledge of what might become of the process, but the lay man in the street does not understand. But with an appropriate law backing up the exercise would assuage people’s fears and anxiety. “People are still afraid of what may become of them after they had registered twice at the ongoing SIM registration. And the security situation in the country coupled with the jungle manner law enforcement agents handle issues in the country demand for a speedy promulgation of this law,” said Nnanna.