According to Ghana’s Data Protection Commission, large amounts of personal data generated in the country are kept across servers, networks and various filing systems in different locations (electronically & manually), locally and abroad.
These have the potential of being shared by different legal and natural persons, across borders and in a manner that the data subject could not have envisaged at the time the initial information is given.
These information systems used in the collection and storage of such personal information can therefore pose considerable challenges to one’s right to privacy.
As this trend continues to grow rapidly with progressively sophisticated technology with considerable abilities to hold large amounts of information, it is necessary to address privacy concerns with data protection laws.
Important information that are commonly stored by businesses, including employee records, customer details, loyalty schemes, transactions, or data collection, need to be protected.
This is to prevent data from being misused by third parties for fraud, such as phishing scams and identity theft.
Data protection, like the name suggests include the process of safeguarding important data from corruption, compromise or loss.
This helps in providing the capability to restore the data to a functional state should something happen to render the data inaccessible or unusable.
In other words, protected data should be available when needed for an intended purpose.
The act of data protection however, goes beyond just making data available for use when needed, to ensuring that data is not tampered with but is preserved and stored for cases of deletion and destruction.
Protecting all this information, in accordance with the Data Protection Act, requires businesses to adhere to specific principles.
In Ghana, the Data Protection Commission (DPC) is an independent statutory body established under the Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843) to protect the privacy of the individual and personal data by regulating the processing of personal information.
The Commission provides for the process to obtain, hold, use or disclose personal information and for other related issues bordering on the protection of personal data. Read Full Story
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