Following a March report published by the Foundation for Investigative Journalism FIJ that a private website had unrestricted access to the National Identification Numbers (NIN) and personal details of registered Nigerians, Paradigm Initiative, a digital advocacy organisation has confirmed that the incident and revealed another breach has occurred.
The group’s Executive Director, Gbenga Sesan while speaking on Newscentral Breakfast show said his organisation was able to obtain the NIN slip of Nigeria’s communication Minister, Bosun Tijani as well as that of the head of Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC), Vincent Olatunji for N100 each on anyverify.com.ng.
Sesan said this scandal portends grave implications, especially regarding security and financial fraud. He added that while this isn’t the first data breach, this incident is on a large scale and disclosed that his organisation will is suing the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) and the NDPC to seek redress for Nigerians. “While I wish that this was a situation of a hack where you can easily find the source and block, this looks more like an inside job, because if it is not, new websites won’t spring up as one gets shut down.” He lamented.
Urging the NIMC to acknowledge its lapses and seek assistance, he also stressed that the regulator, the NDPC needs to do its job.
“NIMC needs to stop hiding its head in the sand, everyone who needs to know what is going on, knows already”.
“If NIMC does not hit the panic button, NIN will become a useless number, it becomes as useless as all those fake birth certificates.” He added.
Sesan appealed to Nigerians to be careful how they share their data and implored them to change the password of anything connected with their NIN as a precaution to prevent financial fraud.
