By Kingsley I. Ilechukwu, Correspondent Lagos
The Director-General, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Mallam Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, has urged the Lagos State Ministry of Health to fully adopt the implementation of all provisions in the Nigerian Data Protection Regulation (NDPR) to protect the medical data of the residents of the state.
Abdullahi made the call Wednesday in Lagos when he paid a working visit to the state Commissioner of Health, Professor Akinola Abayomi where the issue on Implementation of the NDPR for the Lagos Health Sector was discussed.
Abdullahi commended the Commissioner and his team on the proactive, professional dispositions and approach in which the State handled and disseminated public information during the Corona virus pandemic crisis.
“Beyond any iota of doubt, our recovery as a nation from corona virus cannot be told without special mention of the work you and your team did and are still doing to keep us safe”, the DG averred.
The DG stated that in the 4th Industrial Revolution where big data, artificial intelligence, internet of things and blockchain technology were the key indices and parameters driving economy globally, it was important to review and improve on the credibility of datasets in health care, a sector which is data driven, adding that Medical Informatics and Data are the bedrock of clinical medicine and research.
He further disclosed that the NDPR, a regulation issued by NITDA to protect data privacy and coordinate safe exchange of personal data, was built on all the international principles of data protection such as accuracy, limitation of use, security, confidentiality, availability and integrity of data.
According to him, it was a subsidiary law which limited abuse of power by data controllers as data subjects determined how their data should be handled.
The DG stated that the adoption and implementation of the NDPR by the Lagos State Ministry of Health would make every patient in the health care sector trust the privacy and management of their personal information with the state health care sector. This he stated, implied that the sector would have a privacy policy that gave access to the type of personal information being collected, stored and processed by ensuring confidentiality, integrity and availability of personal data.
He reiterated that it was imperative to re-orientate health workers in the state on the importance of data privacy and proper disposal of medical wastes.
