Author(s): Saheed Olamilekan Apampa
The proliferation of data exchange on public and private paper, web and mobile applications, Google, LinkedIn, and Play Store to every social media application whose subscribers are routinely required to provide data to facilitate access portrays the importance and increasing prevalence of data in the modern world. Families, businesses, and governments all need to learn how to live the complexities of a world made possible by cutting-edge technologies and innovative commercial strategies. With real-time intelligence at their disposal, data has been of great value for the characterization, calibration, verification, validation and assessment of creative business models and emerging government policies for predicting their long-term structural durability and performance in extreme situations and a disruptive market environment. To keep up with these expansions of the role of data in all facets of business and non-business functions, provide stronger protection for people and their data and increase greater acceptance of services that rely on data sharing and data use, it becomes increasingly important that the roles of the actors responsible for the protection of data be clearly defined, understood, and augmented. This paper thus, seeks to examine the role of these key actors in the data protection ecosystem by commencing with an introduction to the progressing role of data in the emerging world as well as its challenges, followed by a deep dive into the roles of the principal actors in the system in ensuring the protection of individuals and their personal data. The paper rounds off by concluding and making necessary recommendations for an effective promotion of the proper understanding of these duties by the actors across the ecosystem, without prejudice to innovative business practices.