Nigeria

"Following routine audits of the fintech sector, the Central Bank of Nigeria imposed administrative penalties reported at ₦1 billion each on OPay and Moniepoint (with further unnamed operators also penalised) for deficiencies in know-your-customer and anti-money-laundering controls, in a wider 2024 tightening that included a temporary suspension of new-customer onboarding across several fintech operators."

"The Court held that section 24 of the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, Etc.) Act 2015, which criminalises the sending of messages deemed grossly offensive, indecent, obscene or annoying via a computer network, is vague, arbitrary and incompatible with the right to freedom of expression under Article 9 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and Article 19 of the ICCPR, and ordered Nigeria to amend the provision."

"The Court held that the Federal Government's June 2021 suspension of access to Twitter was unlawful and inconsistent with the rights to freedom of expression, access to information and the media under Article 9 of the African Charter and Article 19 of the ICCPR; it ordered the suspension lifted and directed the government to guarantee non-repetition and to align its measures with those guarantees."

"The NDPC imposed a penalty of approximately ₦555.8 million on Fidelity Bank Plc after finding that the bank processed the personal data of over one million users of its banking application without valid consent and engaged non-compliant third-party data processors, in breach of the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023."

"The Court of Appeal held that the fundamental right to privacy guaranteed by section 37 of the 1999 Constitution encompasses data protection rights, so that breaches of the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation 2019 are enforceable as fundamental-rights violations, and found NIMC's imposition of a fee for the rectification of personal data incompatible with the data subject's rights."

"The Competition and Consumer Protection Tribunal dismissed Meta and WhatsApp's appeal and upheld the FCCPC's USD 220 million administrative penalty (plus USD 35,000 in investigation costs), affirming the Commission's finding that the companies engaged in discriminatory and exploitative data-privacy practices against Nigerian consumers, including denying Nigerian users control over their personal data and sharing data without consent, contrary to the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act and applicable data-protection standards."