NAIRAMETRICS
A Pan-African social enterprise, Paradigm Initiative, has raised an alarm over its discovery of National Identification Number (NIN), Bank Verification Number (BVN), and other data of Nigerians on a website for as low as N100.
According to the Group, the website AnyVerify.com.ng was discovered to be involved in the commercial distribution of personal and private data of Nigerians.
A visit to the website by Nairametrics shows that the site deals with different data of Nigerians and claims to help people verify the data.
“We provide millions of our users reliable and quickest services to verify people’s identity using their NIN, BVN, International Passport, Driving License, Voter’s Card and do much more,” the site claims.
This suggests that the website has access to the databases of all the government institutions that control the listed data, where it pulls information from.
Data privacy breach
Paradigm Initiative added that several unauthorised websites are claiming to hold and provide access to sensitive personal and financial data of Nigerian citizens “for as little as 100 Naira.”
“This alarming development presents a major breach of the fundamental rights to privacy, a breach of data privacy rights, and poses significant risks to individuals and the national economy,” the organization said in a statement.
“Due to the severe implication for millions of Nigerians, we have through our legal partners, Vindich Legal, served a pre-action notice to the following Government Agencies: National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC), Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) and the office of the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF),” it added.
