Nigeria’s Identity Management Agency, NIMC Denies Reports Of Data Breach, Insists Citizens’ Information Safe

The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has denied that its database was compromised as a result of the undersea cable cut which disrupted the services of banks and telecom operators in Nigeria.

 

A tech expert and software engineer, Jackmay Confidence, had also raised the alarm that millions of Nigerians on the NIMC database were exposed to impersonation on the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) passport portal.

 

Speaking with SaharaReporters, Confidence said that while great work had been done on the NIS passport portal, he had identified that any random individual around the world could easily breach Nigerians’ personal information in the state registry and impersonate anyone for a passport, by simply using the person’s National Identity Number (NIN) and date of birth.

 

The tech expert said that while he had a solution on how to fix the issue, it seemed as if the ministry was not buying into his idea as he had sent repeated letters to the office of the Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, through his lawyers, his company and himself, to draw the attention of the minister to the issue but no any action had been taken to address the issue.

 

He further noted that he reached out to the appropriate government agencies including the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) and the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) on January 12, over the issue but no action had been taken to rectify the identified issue.

However, the NIMC Head of Corporate Communications, Kayode Adegoke in a statement issued in Abuja, assured Nigerians of the safety and protection of their data, the News Agency of Nigeria reports.

He said, “We express gratitude to media partners and the whistleblowers for bringing this to our attention.

“And wish to assure Nigerians and legal residents that there is no data breach of any sort and the Citizens’ data is safe and secure in the Nigeria’s National identity database.”

 

NAN reports that the Director-General of NIMC, Abisoye Coker-Odusote, promptly ordered a comprehensive investigation into the matter to find out if any of the Commission’s Tokenisation verification agents had in any way breached the licensing agreement either directly or through any of their sub-licences.

 

NIMC reaffirmed its dedication to safeguarding, securing, and responsibly managing the data entrusted to us.

 

The commission said it understands the critical importance of maintaining public trust and confidence in its operations and would continue to uphold the highest standards of integrity and accountability.

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) last week said that repair works were ongoing on the undersea cable cuts that resulted in equipment faults on the major undersea cables along the West African Coast on Thursday, leading to internet service disruption.

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