Loan sharks major threat to data privacy in Nigeria –NDPC

From Adanna Nnamani, Abuja

Despite regulatory efforts, the National Data Protection Commission (NDPC), says activities of online financial institutions, particularly loan sharks, have remained a major challenge to the fight against data privacy violations in the country.

The National Commissioner of NDPC, Dr Vincent Olatunji, disclosed this during an engagement with journalists recently in Abuja.

Olatunji said that of the 1,000 cases of data breaches and violations reported to the Commission in the last one year, about 80 percent were associated with loan sharks, while others were related to banks, telcos and others.

He said: “We looked at it cumulatively between when we started and now, and we have had over 2,000 reports and that is depite this low level of awareness and I keep telling my colleagues that the task ahead is huge.

“A country like Finland, with about 6 million population, they receive about 11,000 complaints every year.

“Then Nigeria that is a country of over 200 million people, with our level of advancement, you can imagine the number of cases we should be receiving on daily basis.

“Now, out of this 1,000 cases, about 800 of them are coming from digital income companies; all these loan sharks. We have done investigations on the financial sector, education, consulting firms, insurance companies and others and as of today, the major ones that we have done, we have analyzed about four, and some of them have even paid their remediation fees because in the law, we can fine them, depending on the nature of the breach, the impact on the data subjects, and the precautionary measures they took before the issue as well as the level of corporation with the commission during the cause of investigation. If all these things were there and the breach happened accidentally, all we tell you to do, is to pay remediation fee, then we take you through compliance to ensure that you are doing the right thing.”

The NC also expressed concern over the lack of identifiable addresses for many illicit digital loan platforms which makes it difficult to trace them.

He however, assured that the Commission havs been working with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), and anti graft agencies to combat the menace.