GCSA celebrates World Data Privacy Day

The event, held at the Jokkolab in Bakau, was a joint initiative alongside the Ministry of Information Communication and Infrastructure.

 Sanusi Drammeh, principal ICT officer at the Ministry of Information, Communication Infrastructure, said going through history, data privacy day was an educational initiative premised on raising awareness among business and users about the importance of protecting the privacy of their personal information online, especially in the context of social networking.

The educational approach, he added, later broadened in subsequent years to include consumers and business data. Privacy day promotes events and activities that encourage the development of technologies and systems in promoting individual data protection.

“To control over personally identifiable information, PIIS enforce compliance with privacy laws and regulations and create dialogues among stakeholders interested in advancing data protecting and privacy.”

Drammeh urged participants to discuss among themselves and share ideas in order to increase the level of awareness and the importance of data protection and privacy as a fundamental human right.

The objective of this discussion, he added, is to have a comprehensive personal data protection and privacy law that would ensure the protection and privacy of processing personal and private data of people.

“With the ICT infrastructure and services in the country, it is expected that online and mobile application will be rapidly developed even further to offer solutions to local demands that can also be utilised regionally or and even globally.” he said.

Kaddijatou Jawara, a Gambian journalist, said money should be spent on research, saying countries that developed invested heavily in research to develop their countries.

She therefore called on the Gambians to be very careful with the way and the manner they use internet for their daily business.