Lagos Lawyer and data privacy expert Mr. Olumide Babalola has filed an action against Prince Ebeano Supermarket, a foremost indigenous supermarketforemost indigenous supermarket “for their serial violations of the Nigeria Data Protection Act, 2023”.<\/p>\n
In the Originating Summons dated 7th of August. 2023, filed at the High Court of Lagos, Mr. Babalola sued Mrssrs. Sunday Egede and David Chukwuma as the Respondents and the Owners of the Supermarket.<\/p>\n
Explaining the reason for filing the suit, Mr. Babalola stated:<\/p>\n
“Two of the reasons for the stunted growth of privacy and data protection in Nigeria are (1) a lack of awareness of the data protection obligations of businesses and the rights of customers; and (2) the lethargy of Nigerian citizens towards seeking legal or administrative redress for privacy violations. Little wonder Privacy International, in their Stakeholder Report, decries that the right to privacy is the least litigated fundamental right in Nigeria. This narrative needs to change!”<\/p>\n
“Last week, one of the largest retail stores in Nigeria \u2013 Prince Ebeano Supermarket, unassumingly published a notice of data breach at its outlets in Lekki. According to them, the incident has \u2018affected\u2019 the database of customers and prevented access to loyalty points.”<\/p>\n
“I am one of their customers, hence, when this incident was brought to my notice, I immediately did a quick search to ascertain the supermarket\u2019s level of minimum compliance with their data protection obligations as a controller of thousands of customers\u2019 personal data. My first shock was the absence of any privacy notice on their website, at the very least. This is a red flag for lack of transparency and unfair data processing activities. My second search revealed that the supermarket has neither filed a data protection compliance audit since 2019 nor designated an officer to relate with the public on data protection, hence I did not know to whom my enquiries on their privacy practices could be directed.”<\/p>\n
Consequently, on the 9th<\/sup> day of August 2023, I approached the High Court of Lagos State, for some reliefs, to wit:<\/p>\n\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n