Abstract
The main currency in information driven economy is undoubtedly data. With the high premium placed on data, policies by corporate bodies with relatedness to data are usually measured against the backdrop of extant legislative and regulatory frameworks. The new WhatsApp privacy policy has necessitated a discourse on the compliance of WhatsApp platform with constitutional and regulatory provisions on privacy and consent. This interrogation is accentuated by the fact that aside being the widely used social media platform for Nigerians, millions of Nigerians use the platform for business, social, educational and other purposes. The article examined with decided cases the constitutional provision on right to privacy as it relates to data. The work appraised the extant provision of the regulatory framework with regards to consent of data subjects. The article critically examined WhatsApp new privacy policy and found that it runs in contravention of the tenor of the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation 2019 on the requirement of obtaining consent of data subjects or users devoid of vitiating elements of duress, coercion, and undue influence. The article consequently recommends an immediate halt of the new policy by the messaging platform and the invocation of institutional enforcement mechanism by the regulator to stop further implementation of the new policy in the Nigerian cyber space.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1-16 |
| Number of pages | 16 |
| Journal | Nigerian Bar Journal |
| Volume | 11 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| Publication status | Published - Nov 2021 |
| Externally published | Yes |