The Chief Executive Officer,
Paradigm Initiative Nigeria(PIN), Mr Gbenga Sesan has said that the directive
issued by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to the cybercafés to
register users will add more pressure and
more economic cost to their operations.
Sesan made this position known in
an exclusive chat with DigitalSENSE
Business News during an internet intermediary liability workshop organised
by PIN in Lagos, stressing that many of them are already under burden, while
many have closed shops simply because they cannot afford the cost of power and
the cost of internet access.
He explained that it is contradictory
that a government that is seeking more access is creating more bottlenecks in
the part way of those who are providing public access in the first place.
“There are not so many cybercafés
in the first place so why focus on them for that, simply because of cybercrime.
They are getting it wrong, that’s the NCC, because cybercrimes can be committed
from a phone right now. It is not cybercafés and if you say phones are
registered it could be committed from the laptop.
“I don’t think they thought this
through properly in sense of registration of individuals who come to use a
public terminal. The second point there is the fact apart from economic cost
there is also the dearth to access. There is an internet freedom report that is
done annually for every country and so one of the things mentioned is obstacle
to access, and so what NCC has simply done is to place a major obstacle in the
part way of access in Nigeria. The thing that they might be experiencing will
be fake names like the incident where Mike Tyson was registered to vote in
Nigeria in 2007.”
The PIN
boss said that there is no data privacy law in Nigeria and there are data of
citizens all over the place, data with telecom companies, NCC, Federal Road Safety
Commission, and Immigration and there is no regulation and guideline on how
data is used, and stressed that “85 million mobile numbers of citizens who
innocently registered is available for sale for N5, 000 publicly in Nigeria
each by state.”
DigitalSENSE Business News recalls that the Nigerian Communications
Commission (NCC) issued a
public notice signed by Director of Public Affairs, Tony Ojobo ordering cyber
café licensees and operators to maintain databases of subscribers and users,
including their full names, physical addresses, passport photos and telephone
numbers to assist in investigations into cyber crime, if necessary.
Anthony Nwakaegho/GEE
DigitalSENSE Business News
.. Making SENSE of digital revolution!
Pix:Chief Executive Officer, Paradigm Initiative Nigeria(PIN), Mr Gbenga Sesan
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