AN ANALYSIS OF THE SCOPE AND BOUNDARIES OF PERSONAL DATA UNDER THE NIGERIA DATA PROTECTION ACT

The widespread adoption of smart and emerging technologies has made data collection increasingly pervasive, with many digital services and connected devices routinely gathering information about users. However, data protection laws generally regulate only the collection and processing of personal data, rather than data in general. This paper examined the scope and boundaries of personal data under the Nigeria Data Protection Act (NDPA) against the backdrop of the increasing commodification of personal data in the digital economy. It addressed the growing concern that data, which is fundamentally connected to human identity and life opportunities, had increasingly been reconstructed as a commercial resource exploited by multinational corporations for economic and political advantage, often at the expense of data subjects' autonomy and dignity. The paper sought to interrogate how personal data should be legally conceptualized under the NDPA, whether the Act genuinely empowered data subjects through meaningful informational control, and how the interpretation and application of the law should mediate power relations among individuals, the state, and corporate actors.