NCC approves release of telecom subscribers’ data for National ID

THE Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Professor Umar GarbaDanbatta, recently approved the release of the commission’s data from the ongoing Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards registration exercise to the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC).

The commission said the approval was to complement Federal Government’s effort at harmonizing biometric data captured by different agencies in the country, particularly as there had been earlier instruction to transfer validated data from SIM registration to NIMC.

Danbatta made the approval while receiving the Director General of NIMC, Engr. Aliyu Aziz, who paid him a courtesy visit yesterday in Abuja.

“I would like to pledge our commitment to this cooperation between the NIMC and the NCC to ensure that we have a secure, reliable database containing biometric information for all Nigerians, which will definitely augur well for the security of the country among other benefits,” he noted. “So we are committed to this. We recognize the importance of this cooperation and I would like to stress the need to give it all the seriousness it deserves.

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I am happy that there’s an MoU and there’s also a Federal Government’s directive, which would help in facilitating the data transfer, “he added.

The EVC, however, called for the reinvigorating of the existing inter-agency committee handling the exercise in order to fast-track the peace-meal data transfer to NIMC.

He promised that the data to be transferred to NIMC would be fully backed up to avoid any hitches in future.

Responding Aziz expressed a delight at the cooperation between the two agencies, said that the data transfer from NCC would also improve the ongoing National Identification Number (NIN) exercise of the commission.

He said NIMC would use the NCC’s data to assign NIM to Nigerians who were captured in the validated data received.