NIMC says data not compromised despite rogue sites selling Nigerians’ data

The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) says the data of Nigerians “has not been compromised” despite controversial websites like anyverify.com selling such data which were collected by NIMC and other government-authorised agencies.

An investigation by a digital social enterprise, Paradigm Initiative, detailed how the website provided access to the private information of Nigerians for a token.

“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,” Paradigm Initiative wrote on X.

In its response to the apparent data breach, NIMC, which issues the national identity number and handles Nigeria’s national database, blamed the breach on the carelessness of Nigerians who upload their personal data to such websites.

“NIMC advises Nigerians to avoid giving their data to unauthorised and phishing sites. This poses the danger of data harvesting and comprises individual data

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“NIMC urges the public to disregard any claims or services these websites offer and should not give their data as they are potentially fraudulent and data provided by the public on such websites are gathered and stored to build the data services they illegally provide,” NIMC wrote in a Saturday statement by its Head of Corporate Communications, Kayode Adegoke.

AnyVerify.com.ng has since gone offline although Paradigm Initiative says it archived all the information on the website.

Details later…