By Bose Adelaja

Stakeholders in the gaming industry in Nigeria have emphasized the need for service providers to adhere to the regulations guiding the industry especially by implementing Data Protection and Know Your Customer, KYC, verification intiative.

This is the take home from the maiden national symposium for the Nigeria gaming industry held on Thursday, at Victoria Island, Lagos State, organised by Velex Advisory Limited, a leading gaming and consultancy firm in West Africa in partnership with the National Lottery Regulatory n Commission, NLRC, and National Data Protection Bureau, NDPB.

The stakeholders said if customers can repose confidence in the industry by supplying vital information, the service providers should as well avoid breaching such trust by applying professionalism while processing information.

Among the speakers at the event were: Dr Vincent Olatunji, National Commissioner /CEO, National Data Protection Bureau (NDPB), Mr Lanre Gbajabiamila, Director General, National Lottery Regulation Commission, NLRC; and Mr Olatunji Idowu, the Managing Partner, Velex West Africa.

In his presentation titled,: “KYC verification in the gaming industry,” Gbajabiamila, said KYC is one of the measures introduced by the regulatory body to evaluate the identities of customers especially now that the digital world has brought a lot of changes to the industry.

He urged service providers to comply with the directives saying, “The KYC was introduced to the gaming industry so that customers’ identities are verified to avoid putting the industry at risk,”

Gbajabiamila said there was the need for service providers to submit monthly verification reports to NLRC as they have been directed to have online presence.

In his submission, Dr Vincent Olatunji
who made presentation on the title:”Gaming and Data Protection Compliance: Implication for Regulators, Operators and Stakeholders, the future of data security said the advent of Covid-19 has led to surge in e-commerce and accelerated digital transformation in the gaming sector.

“The rights of customers should be protected, especially the rights to information and updates given to you. There should be transparency and security of the information because non-compliance is a major breach.

“There is a call for the protection of such data in fulfilment of Section 27 of the Nigeria Constitution which says that there should be privacy and protection of data collection.”

Mr Olatunji Idowu, enjoined service providers to take the advantage of the symposium to transform their businesses.