The Data Protection Commission celebrates Data Protection and Privacy Day under the theme “A New Chapter in Enforcing Privacy Accountability and Empowering Data Subjects”
Global Data Protection Day is celebrated worldwide to highlight the importance and impact of personal data processing on Data Subjects.
The Data Protection Commission marked the celebration with a week-long series of awareness activities from 28th January to 1st February 2019 and hosted a climax event on 6th February under the theme “A New Chapter in Enforcing Privacy Accountability and Empowering Data Subjects”.
Guests at the event witnessed the formal opening of the new Data Protection Office in East Legon, the launch of the Commission’s new corporate identity and the launch of a National Awareness campaign.
The celebration also offered an opportunity for the Commission to highlight key achievements including the training of 60 NABCO staff who were now deployed across the country increasing the Commission’s regional reach and the Data Protection Practitioner training that the Commission is offering, which is the first of its kind in Africa, establishing an African industry body of Data Protection Practitioners to address the skills deficit in this region and bridging the global divide in available professionals to support the legal requirement for qualified professionals.
Honourable Vincent Sowah-Odotei, representing the Honourable Minister of Communications stated that In line with the government of Ghana’s National Transformation Agenda to position Ghana as the gateway to Africa, the country has taken positive steps within the digital sector, and was one of the first four countries in Africa, and also the second Anglophone country besides Mauritius, to ratify the Malabo Convention on Cyber Security and Data Protection, an important treaty which combines the two critical pillars of the cyber age.
Honourable Sowah-Odotei also formally announced that in June 2019, Ghana will be hosting the first International Data Protection Conference, in Accra for the African Network of Data Protection Authorities.
In attendance at the celebration were heads of stakeholder agencies, including the National Identification Authority, National Cyber Security Advisor, Chamber of Telecommunications, the Audit Service, National Communications Authority, Consumer Protection Agency (CPA), Ghana Immigration Service (GIS), State Enterprises Commission, and many others.
