Engr. Aliyu Aziz, DG/CEO of NIMC

The Director General, National Identity Management Commission, Engr. Aliyu Aziz, has assured Nigerians of the safety of the National Identity Database.

This was made known at an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in reaction to the recent breach of the Indian Aadhaar database.

Engr. Aziz said, “We have to be concerned with security because of the recent breach in India and Facebook, our database is not available for research and allows access for only verification, you can only access one data at time. “
He assured Nigerians that the back end that takes care of the database is fully secure with certifications based on international Standards.

“We have certifications to ensure that we are following international processes, apart from that, we are also using our Nigerian ingenuity to ensure the security of the database”, he said.

Also speaking, the General Manager, Legal Services Hadiza Ali-Dagabana noted that apart from NIMC’s mandate to create and populate the National Identity Database, Identity Management can only be actualized if that information can be accessed, verified and authenticated.

“For service of verification of identity, we must allow access. However, access is not open ended, it will be based on clearance levels determined by the service provided by the Organization “she stated.

She also emphasized that, “Only Security Agencies will have access to all the information in the database, through a particular Officer/office designated by the Agency to access the Database and verify the information needed”.

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