Data Protection Commission Pays a Courtesy Call on NCCE

The Director of Regulatory Compliance at the Data Protection Commission, Mr. Quintin Akrobotu, has led a delegation to pay a working visit to the management of the National Commission for Civic Education as part of stakeholder engagements within the government sector.

Accompanied by the Head of Corporate Affairs, Mad. Pearl Gyekye and the Incident Response Manager, Ms. Natasha Hammond, Mr. Akrobotu stated the mission of the visit as a move to engage the NCCE to find converging points of operations, which could be an avenue for partnership between the two state institutions.

Mr. Akrobotu, however, expressed profound concern about the rate at which data privacy laws and regulations are easily flouted, either advertently or as a result of ignorance. “But ignorance of the law is no excuse”, he quickly added.

Emphasising the gravity of data privacy breaches, he revealed that fines charged by the courts can be very exorbitant, explaining that it is pegged at such high rates to serve as a deterrent, so that the subject matter will not be taken for granted.

Touching on the ignorance levels among the citizenry, the Regulatory Compliance Director indicated that there is a need to create awareness about data management and respect for data privacy, as the tendency to fall foul of the law is not far-fetched. “There are so many things we are doing that are against the law, including taking data of attendees to events, whether implicitly or otherwise, and a host of others are all against the Data Protection Act 2012 (Act 843)”.

Meanwhile, Deputy Chairman for Operations, Mr. Samuel Akuamoah, on behalf of the NCCE, expressed immense interest in the partnership, alluding to the need for the general public to be well aware of the data protection rights they reserve, and for institutions and organisations to be guided in their line of work. He thus assured the team from the Data Protection Commission of the NCCE’s readiness to advance the course of awareness raising on the subject matter.