Martha Apeh is a lawyer and a writer with a passion for data protection and privacy. After a two year career in practice at a full-fledged arbitration law firm, she began to explore the importance of innovation on the digital economy and now currently practices on the intersection between law and technology.
Her passion for privacy budded while working on a data protection matter as a lawyer. It was a suit instituted against some government entities for breaching provisions of the Nigerian Data Protection Regulation. The case exposed to her the huge understanding gap in data protection rights by citizens, government organisations and various data collection bodies.
Her career in privacy took a fundamental shift in 2022 where she had a brief and defining career at Tech Hive Advisory. She worked with the data protection team and wrote privacy policies and notices for startups and organizations across Africa. She also wrote reviews of technology policies within Africa; Namibia, Nigeria, Uganda among others.
In her current position at Co-creation Hub, she works with the cybersecurity team to provide security support and awareness to civil society organizations, media organizations and vulnerable groups across Africa. She is involved in researching, and preparing privacy policies for the team’s digital assets. She also supports the team in running the command centre which provides support to CSOs and vulnerable groupd. She manages the Tech & Society Community of Practice.
She is a research member of The Policy Roundtable(TPR) and contributes insightful research papers on policy development within Nigeria. She also actively contributes to facilitating speaking engagements on behalf of The Policy Roundtable.