The Pacesetter Frontier Magazine

Tag: NITDA

  • NITDA Cautions Nigerians Against Sharing NIN, BVN With AI Tools

    The National Information Technology Development Agency has warned Nigerians against sharing sensitive personal information, including identification numbers, bank details, photographs and medical results, on artificial intelligence platforms.

    NITDA issued the warning in an advisory titled “Advisory on the Safe Use of AI Platforms”, published on its website on Monday.

    The agency said members of the public were increasingly using AI chatbots and assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot and Meta AI for schoolwork, business, job applications, health questions and personal matters.

    According to the advisory, many users share personal information without realising that information entered or uploaded on AI platforms may be stored outside their control.

    NITDA said, “Information entered into an AI platform, may be retained, logged, used to train the provider’s AI models.”

    It warned that personal details shared with AI platforms could be exposed in a data breach and used for identity theft, impersonation or financial fraud.

    The agency also cautioned that AI tools could produce answers that appeared confident but were inaccurate or outdated.

    It said acting on such information in health, legal, financial or academic matters could cause serious harm.

    Anonymise information

    NITDA advised members of the public to remove, anonymise or pseudonymise personally identifiable information and sensitive information before using AI tools.

    The agency also advised users to verify the privacy and data-handling terms of AI platforms before using them.

    It further urged users not to upload internal documents unless specifically authorised.

    NITDA said organisations should implement AI governance or AI transformation policies defining approved tools, permitted use cases, data-handling rules and accountability for AI use.

    It also advised organisations and their employees to follow existing AI, information security and data protection policies.

    NITDA urges users to verify AI answers

    In a related message shared on its X handle, NITDA urged users of AI platforms to be careful about the information they provide.

    The agency said: “You use ChatGPT, Gemini, Meta AI for work & school? Be careful what you share.”

    It added: “Many share NIN, BVN, bank info, photos & medical results not knowing it may be stored outside your control.”

    NITDA advised users: “Don’t share sensitive data with AI; anonymize your prompts; and always verify AI answers.”

    The agency ended the advisory with the message: “Think Before You Prompt.” Punch

  • Lawyers flag down proposed NITDA Bill

    Lawyers flag down proposed NITDA Bill

    Legal practitioners who were part of a webinar on ‘Stakeholder engagement for Legal Practitioners in Nigeria on National Information Technology Development Agency, NITDA Bill, 2021’ have picked holes in the propositions of a new National Information technology Development Agency (Repeal and Re-Enactment) Bill 2021, saying it is not only confusing but also conflicting.

    Almost all the participants who said they have taken time to go through the document said it was an attempt to unnecessarily duplicate the regulatory powers of some existing government agencies in the country.

    The webinar was put together by the Information and Communication Technology, ICT Committee of the Nigeria Bar Association Section on Business Law, NBA-SBL, in collaboration with the NITDA and Farisad Investment Limited, FIL. It was hosted by the Chief executive Officer of FIL, Mr Sanusi Musa.

    This followed an earlier stakeholder engagement meeting also organised by NITDA in Abuja February 28, 2022. Just like the webinar at the weekend, the February engagement was also to consider the proposed NITDA Bill 2021 which, among other things, aims at changing NITDA from an IT Development Agency, to a regulator of the information technology industry ecosystem.

    Providing the overview of the essence of the new bill, Director, Legal Service Department at NITDA, Emmanuel Edet, said: “What we are trying to do at NITDA is to ensure proper alignment with the management of the ever-expanding ICT ecosystem and maximally protect the users of digital services, thereby bridging the gap in the digital economy without necessarily straying into the regulatory power of other existing regulatory agencies”

    Corroborating him, Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami, who was represented by his Technical Adviser, Prof. Saliu Junaidu, said NITDA Act 2007 is one of the laws that required a repeal and re-enactment in order to keep it in tune with the developmental regulation direction of the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS), 2020-2030.

    Also justifying the need for the Bill, Director-General of NITDA, Kashifu Abdullahi, said the scope of ICT has widened over the years with a lot of convergence and expansion in technology platforms being used by businesses and governments for delivery services. Abdullahi said: “Considering that NITDA Act is almost 16 years old, we consider it necessary to keep the Act up-to-date with the current reality in the Nigerian digital economy space”.

    But all that did not cut a bug with the lawyers who said the bill was standing on a faulty foundation.

    Taking the first shot was the NBA President, Olumide Apata, who, after his brief remark, raised three fundamental concerns. They are; how the Bill will align with the Startup Bill before the National Assembly, how the NITDA Bill intend to navigate its way within the broad context of regulatory functions of other agencies to avoid overlapping of functions; and what will be the implications of the harsh penalties for violation of certain sections of the Bill on the ICT business environment?.

    Hardly had Apata who was represented by ICT Committee chairman, NBA-SBL, Rotimi Ogunyemi, dropped the microphone before other legal experts descended on the bill saying it almost generally conflicts with existing regulations of some other organisations including the Central Bank of Nigeria,CBN, the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, Standard Organisation of Nigeria, SON, Computer Professional Registration Council of Nigeria, CPN, Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, FCCPC, National Identity Management Commission, NIMC, the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unity, NFIU and Office of the National Security Adviser, ONSA, among others.

    Each of the Act establishing all these existing agencies were looked into vis-à-vis the new provisions in the NITDA Bill and it was unanimously expressed by the legal stakeholders that there were regulatory conflicts that may be detrimental to the peaceful regulatory atmosphere experienced in the nation’s digital economy space.

    Aside some of the provisions overlapping on the regulatory functions other agencies, the legal experts observed that a number of the provisions in the Bill was “ambiguous, unclear, and capable of exerting substantial regulatory conflict in the system.

    They called on the drafters of the NITDA Bill 2021 to go back to the drawing table and address all the areas of regulatory conflict with existing regulatory powers and functions of other agencies.

    Some of the stakeholders also called for outright expunging of the conflicting sections from the Bill, stating, however, that if NITDA wishes to collaborate with other agencies in some critical areas of regulations, it is better to simply resort to signing Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) with other concerned agencies instead of interloping into their regulatory arena.

     

    (Vanguard)