The Nigeria Data Protection Commission, NDPC, has said that the country needs more 500,000 data protection officers.
National Commissioner of the NDPC, Vincent Olatunji, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, in Abuja on Monday.
The statement comes in response to a directive from the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) on January 8, instructing the unbundling of the HND Computer Science course into four specialized areas.
The specialized areas identified by NBTE include Artificial Intelligence, Networking and Cloud Computing, Software and Web Development, as well as Cybersecurity and Data Protection.
Olatunji expressed satisfaction with this development, stating that it reinforces the importance of focusing on specific areas of expertise.
He emphasized the existing manpower deficit in these critical areas, particularly in data protection, and asserted that a minimum of 500,000 data protection officers is needed to address the demand.