The National Information Technology Development Agency has extended the deadline of the submission of 2019 annual data protection audit report to May 15.

The extension of the deadline by the Director General, NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa, was due to the coronavirus pandemic that had affected the operations of many businesses in the country.

It was gathered the extension was granted based on requests made by data controllers and administrators.

The Nigeria Data Protection Regulation was articulated to provide a clear framework for the security and privacy of Nigerians.

The regulation mandates data controllers, who process the personal data of more than 2, 000 data subjects, to submit a summary of their organisation’s data protection audit not later than March 15.

It was gathered that many companies had not filed their annual data protection audit report as of the March 15 deadline.

The Director, e-Government Development and Regulations Department at NITDA, Dr Vincent Olatunji, had told The PUNCH last week that the agency recorded high compliance rate from many companies in the banking, telecommunications, manufacturing, the FMCG and services sectors than other sectors.