Two of Nigeria’s leading banks, Guarantee Trust Bank and Zenith Bank are under investigation for breach of customers sensitive personal data that are under their custody.
The two banks are being investigated by the Nigeria Data Protection Bureau unlawful disclosure of banking records to a third party and unlawful access and processing of personal data.
The National Commissioner and Chief Executive Officer of NDPB, Dr. Vincent Olatunji, in a statement revealed that the investigation covers the data governance practice of the banks in all their branches in Nigeria and extends to all third parties carrying out data processing activities.
According to him, many data privacy and protection regulations and best practices are hardly implemented down the organisational strata of major data controllers in Nigeria.
Meanwhile, the Nigeria Inter Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) which indicated that within 9 months of 2020, fraudsters attempted 46,126 attacks and they were successful in 41,979 occasions representing 91% of the time.
This level of vulnerability to data breach is unacceptable and it can only be addressed through foolproof data security and data privacy measures by data controllers/data processors in the industry.
The National Commissioner enjoins all financial institution to emulate the example of the Central Bank of Nigeria in compliance with the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation (NDPR) 2019 and in creating a robust data governance system.
The National Privacy Week is an opportunity for all organizations to set their records straight on how they handle the data of citizens. Enforcement measures will be taken against willful violators of privacy rights forthwith.
Leave a Reply