NIMC’s licensees undergo further scrutiny

It would not be a walk in the park for licensees of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to provide verification services to citizens as the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) assured a serious check on their operations.

The NDPC’s decision was to forestall any data breach from third party agents who are unaware of the provisions of Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 and NIMC Privacy policy on citizens data.

The commissions have expressed worry over the issues of unauthorised National Identity Numbers (NIN) verification by expressverify.com, and launched investigations to disclose the truth.

The investigations revealed that a third-party who was originally authorised to provide verification services to citizens and genuine businesses might have allowed expressverify.com to use its NIN verification credentials to conduct verification.

However, the Nigeria Data Protection Commission said at the weekend that “the circumstances surrounding this permission is still under investigation”.

A statement signed by the Head of Legal Enforcement and Regulations of the NDPC, Mr Babatunde Bamigboye, noted: “To remedy this incident, National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), in line with established remediation protocols, barred all forms of access to its database.

“Though necessary, barring all forms of access affected all genuine and crucial verification requests.

“After a painstaking review, limited access has been granted to a few establishments that are providing pivotal public services such as education and security.

“Ongoing investigation – by relevant agencies – seeks to establish the medium through which expressverify.com obtained the credentials of bona fide third parties and to determine the liability of persons involved in line with extant laws.

“While existing technical and organisational measures are being strengthened to ensure the protection of this data, it is important for citizens to ensure that they are not left unidentified in various frameworks for development.

“It is equally important to be vigilant when sharing personal information on various online platforms.”