By Queen Kunde
A civil society group, Citizen Advocacy for Social and Economic Rights CASER has backed efforts by the National Identity Management Commission NIMC to address issues of data breach by online vendors.
It also urged the agency to go all out to ensure that individuals within and outside of its system found culpable in the breach of sensitive data be made to face the full wrath of the law.
The group in a statement signed by its Executive Director, Frank Tietie said that NIMC had been proactive in identifying and disowning websites found to be selling National Identity Number (NIN) data.
“As a responsible citizen-based organization, we at CASER have been following the trend of issues on the breach of data and acknowledge the position of the National Identity Management Commission NIMC that its data base has not been compromised.
“We are elated that NIMC moved swiftly to identify no fewer than five websites found to be involved in data phishing and sales of NIN information and ensured that they are put out of operation. This is what is expected of a responsible government agency.
“Our investigation also showed that a number of unscrupulous individuals found culpable have been arrested by security operatives in the course of discreet investigation.
“This is also a laudable feat and we urge NIMC to continue to cooperate with the security agencies to ensure that examples are made of those found involved, no matter how highly placed, once investigation is completed.
“We however want to advise Nigerians to be wary of phishing sites including those whose links are shared in WhatsApp groups to avoid data harvesting that could comprise their personal information” it added.