PRESS STATEMENT – 18TH JANUARY 2021

TO: NEWS EDITORS / MEDIA OFFICIALS FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Distinguish Ladies and gentlemen of the press,

The Data Protection Commission (DPC) welcomes you all to our meet the press today to engage the public through your platforms. We would like to bring to the attention of the general public some Data Protection issues as we commence the celebration of Global Data Protection Week. As you may be aware, the DPC was establish by the Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843) in 2012. Our main mandate is to protect the privacy of individuals and their personal data. Towards this objective, we have been working tirelessly with our limited resources to train and upskill local data protection professionals, educate the public to reduce the skills deficit, support entities in the public and private sector with good data governance and keep abreast with international best practices for protecting data and the privacy of individuals.

Today, we wish to inform the general public of the following;

The Data Privacy Day also known as the Data Protection Day is a global event celebrated on the 28th of January every year to raise awareness among Data Subjects and businesses about the importance of protecting privacy as a Fundamental Human Right. A major objective of the Data Protection Day is to inform and educate the public at large of their day to day rights and also provide professionals with the opportunity of meeting Data Subjects.

As a member of the Global Assembly Privacy (GPA), the Ghana Data Protection Commission (DPC) will be commemorating this by organizing week-long nationwide awareness activities to sensitise the general public about Data Protection and Privacy.

Our Theme for the week is “Transparency, Trust & Transformation in a Digitised Ghana”