Data Protection Commission to embark on campaign

The Data Protection Commission (DPC) will launch a national campaign tagged “Know your right, protect your information” from January 2015.

The campaign is to adequately educate all stakeholders on data protection for the Data Protection Act, 2012(ACT 843) to be implemented successfully.

Announcing this at the launch of the data protection Act, 2012 (ACT 843) in Accra, Ag. Executive Director, DPC, Mrs Teki Akuetteh Falconer, said the Commission would demystify data protection to the ordinary Ghanaian in all 10 regions.

Mrs Falconer said the DPC had focused its awareness creation mandate on a small scale due to financial constraints and would carry on the campaign targeting specific stakeholder groups like the credit bureaus, financial institutions and some software developing companies.

“Over the past couple of years and even recently, the barrage of privacy invasions of citizens in our country, especially through the use of information technology have led to discrimination, personal harassment, damage to professional reputations, financial losses and in some extreme cases death,” he said.

"Even though we sometimes feel that not much can be done in such situations, the growing importance, diversity and complexity of this fundamental right to privacy cannot be underestimated.”

The DPC’s functions as set out under the Act include the implementation and monitoring of compliance, the determination and setting of the administrative arrangements it considers appropriate for the discharge of its duties.

The Commission is also to take care of the investigation of complaints and the determination of such complaints on the basis of an investigation in a manner the Commission considers fair.

The Data Protection Act (ACT 843) was passed by parliament in 2012 to protect the privacy of the individual and personal data by regulating the processing of personal information.

The law, therefore, provides for the process by which one can obtain, hold, use or disclose personal information and other related issues bordering on the protection of personal data.