HANDLE SENSITIVE DATA WITH CARE, REGISTRAR URGES STAFF

The MLSCN Registrar, Dr Tosan Erhabor, has urged Council staff to be more responsible in the handling of client’s data entrusted to them during their official assignments. He made the remark at the start of a three-day training organized by the management to equip staff with the relevant knowledge and skills to better manage sensitive data.

According to him, the training had become imperative given the digitalization of the Council’s processes, which could expose sensitive data to cyber criminals and other unscrupulous elements online. “MLSCN, as a regulatory body, handles and controls various forms of data such as indexing, e-licensing, e-registration of schools and medical laboratories. All of these are personal information shared with us in trust. Therefore, it is our duty to safeguard them in the interest of our clients,” he noted.

Further justifying the training of staff in such a new field, the Registrar recalled that the Council was one of the first agencies to key into the recently enacted Data Protecting Act, 2023, and was represented at the sensitization workshop organized by the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) for stakeholders on August 31, 2023. The training, of staff, he added, was in furtherance of the Council’s desire to comply with the provisions of the Law.

“Further to management’s decision to digitalize all our processes,” the Registrar noted, “it is likely that some of the information in our custody and uploaded online may get into the wrong hands and used maliciously by cyber criminals and hackers. Any such incidents could have a negative impact on our hard-earned reputation.”

Meanwhile, the training program was organized by MLSCN and facilitated by Tech-Hive Advisory, an Abuja-based firm. Some of the staff in attendance expressed gratitude to management for exposing them to a new field of knowledge and skill.