Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) has called for increased collaboration to raise awareness and foster data privacy and protection across Nigeria.

Dr. Vincent Olatunji, national commissioner, NDPC

The call was made by Dr. Vincent Olatunji, national commissioner, NDPC, during an event marking the 2025 World Data Privacy Day in Lagos.

World Data Privacy Day, observed globally on January 28 every year, serves to highlight the importance of data privacy.

The theme for this year’s observance was “Respecting Privacy, Safeguarding Data, and Enabling Trust.”

Olatunji, who joined the event virtually, stressed that collective action was required to prioritise data privacy in order to attract foreign direct investment into Nigeria.

In his speech, Olatunji outlined the importance of protecting personal data, emphasising that everyone must understand how to safeguard their personal information.

“We need to know how to protect our personal information and data and make sure that we do not share personal information anyhow,” he said.

He also urged data controllers and processors to ensure the protection of data under their care.

Olatunji further discussed the necessity of developing a robust digital economy in the country, which depends on a comprehensive approach to data management, policies, and strategies.

“We all need to work together to make it happen,” he added.

Highlighting the Commission’s progress, Olatunji noted that over 10,000 people had been trained, to create 500,000 jobs in the Nigerian economy through data protection initiatives.

Mr. Tokunbo Smith, president, Data Knowledge Information Privacy Protection Initiative (DKIPPI), also spoke at the event, urging Nigerians to make full use of the Nigeria Data Protection Law, which was passed in June 2023.

Smith praised President Bola Tinubu for signing the law into effect, calling it a “day of freedom for Nigerians.”

He highlighted the law’s provision that empowers individuals to take legal action against anyone who misuses their personal data.

Smith also commended the NDPC for its efforts in training data protection officers and providing certification exams, encouraging Nigerians to leverage these opportunities to protect their data and explore career paths in data protection.

Mr. Fiyinfolu Okedara, guest speaker, further emphasised the need for continuous awareness of data privacy.

He explained that data protection should be an ongoing process, not just a one-time event.

Okedara urged both organisations and individuals to prioritise data privacy education year-round, rather than only on World Data Privacy Day.

During the panel discussion, Mr. Gbenga Sesan, executive director, Paradigm Initiative, stressed that respecting data privacy is a shared responsibility.

He urged people to safeguard their personal data by not writing it down carelessly and to foster trust by ensuring data protection is prioritised.

Mr. Olumide Babalola, another panelist, raised awareness about the future implications of data privacy, predicting a time when children might sue their parents for creating digital footprints for them.

He stressed that consent should always be obtained before adding someone to a WhatsApp group, as failing to do so would constitute a breach of privacy.

The event aimed to foster greater awareness of data privacy and promote best practices among individuals and organisations, ensuring that data protection remains a priority in Nigeria’s evolving digital landscape.

Nvidia, world leader in accelerated computing, lost about $589 billion of its market value on Monday amid rise in DeepSeek.

DeepSeek, a private Chinese company founded in July 2023 by Liang Wenfeng, is an open-source large language model that relies on what is known as “inference-time computing,” meaning “they activate only the most relevant portions of their model for each query, and that saves money and computation power”

Nvidia, on the other hand provides a variety of products and services, including GPUs, AI software, and cloud gaming.

According to Bloomberg, the loss was driven by the company’s shares plummeting by 17 percent during midday trading on Wall Street.

The steep decline reverberated across global markets due to Nvidia’s substantial influence on major indices.

In the United States, the S&P 500 fell by 2.3 percent, while the Nasdaq 100 dropped 3.6 percent.

European markets were similarly affected, with Frankfurt and Paris stock exchanges closing in the red, while London finished flat and Asian stock markets recorded losses.

Technology giants like Microsoft and Alphabet, the parent company of Google, also saw their shares decline, however, Meta managed to buck the trend, trading in the green.

Nvidia has been a major beneficiary of the influx in spending on artificial intelligence (AI) because of the company’s semiconductors, which are essential for AI technologies to work efficiently.

However, the publication said the recent emergence of DeepSeek, a Chinese chatbot platform, appears to have shaken up the AI industry.

DeepSeek recently overtook ChatGPT as the top-rated free app on Apple’s US app store.

In 2022, the US imposed restrictions to limit exports of advanced GPU chips to China.

However, DeepSeek’s researchers claimed they trained their latest model on Nvidia’s H800 chips.

The training was approximately $6 million, which is a fraction of the usual expense for developing high-end AI systems.

DeepSeek’s breakthrough in the AI industry comes as the US intensifies its efforts to maintain dominance in the field with the unveiling of the Stargate Project.

The Project, which was announced by President Donald Trump, is a strategic collaboration between Oracle, Japan’s SoftBank, and OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT.

OpenAI stated that the initiative would strengthen US AI capabilities, create thousands of jobs, and enhance national security.

By 2027 mobile app usage will decrease by 25 per cent due to AI assistants, according to Gartner, Inc. Smartphone users will turn to AI assistants, such as Apple Intelligence, ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Meta AI, and others to replace apps for many functions.

In addition to the impact of AI assistants, apps will be consolidated across separate brands and companies, creating mobile app partnerships or consortiums to reach more users per app at scale and defray the cost of creation and maintenance.

“CMOs should begin scenario planning for the impacts of decreased mobile app usage,” said Emily Weiss, senior principal for the Gartner Marketing Practice.

“Brands with low app engagement and retention will likely be first impacted – this will be a positive development for brands that are not overly reliant on driving revenue via apps as app development costs will decrease.

Other brands may be severely impacted by the disintermediation of users turning to AI assistants for services.

The loss of app users will also result in the loss of first-party data collection and the ability to reach fewer users via mobile push notifications,” she added.

By 2026, over 1/3 of web content will be created for the purposes of Gen-AI powered search.

According to Gartner’s 2024 CMO Spend Survey of 395 respondents between February and March 2024, the average CMO allocated almost a quarter of their digital marketing budget to search.

Other than end users directly visiting a website, search currently drives more traffic to the average commercial enterprise website than any other referral source.

Given this, a loss of search driven traffic due to algorithmic shifts by major search engines would result in tangible, negative commercial impact to any organisation.

“CMOs will need to direct their teams to hire talent with a strong understanding of how GenAI, and broader AI influences, impacts the performance of their content in search algorithms,” said Weiss.

“It will be important to upskill the function by investing in search and content talent with AI skillsets. These associates will need to have familiarity with creating or optimising content to train and rank within evolving search algorithms,” Weiss added.

By 2028 digital marketers will move 30 per cent of their paid social budget to support advertising and partnerships on subscription-based channels.

It is becoming more challenging for CMOs to maintain, let alone grow, their reach and engagement among consumers.

This is especially true as consumers shift their tech and media behaviors away from social media, to other platforms and subscription based channels.

Gartner’s 2024 CMO Spend survey found that since 2022, paid social has maintained the highest budget allocation for all digital media spend.

In 2024, B2C Marketing leaders reported allocating 14.3 per cent for their digital channel budget to social media advertising (an increase from 12.3% in 2023).

“Closed group communities and subscription channels offer a potential alternative for social media weary consumers and content creators who want to do more than feed the algorithm,” said Weiss.

“Brands can leverage closed-group subscription channels – such as Substack, Patreon, and Discord – and the professional creators on them to reach relevant target audiences who are already engaging with content they self-selected into consuming.”

By 2027, 85 per cent of customer data will be xollected from automated interactions or those led by AI agents. Current AI models, such as large language models (LLMs), lack the agency to autonomously execute tasks and adapt in complex environments.

However, as new levels of intelligence are added, new AI agents are poised to quickly become more capable and reliable as brands seek to address customer facing use cases.

“There will be more AI agents than people, so while current approaches require humans in the loop, this idea will quickly become antiquated.

“Marketers will need to determine when and how they can trust AI agents to act on behalf of the brand and customers across key areas,” said Weiss.