The Federal Government has introduced a suite of digital Tokens to replace the ageing NIN slip and polycarbonate card.
The
Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami said this at
stakeholders workshop on the National Identification Number (NIN) Tokenization
Solution organised by National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) in Abuja.
He
said the government adopted the solution to ensure the privacy of personal
identifiable information of individuals during verification transactions and to
reduce incidences of illegal retrieval, usage, transfer, and storage of NIN.
The
Minister who was represented by the Director-General of NIMC, Aliyu Abubakar
said the full implementation begins on Jan. 1.
He
said the tokenisation solution was customised to protect personal identifiable
information and to protect the sanctity as well as the sensitivity of the NIN
issued by NIMC to registered individuals.
“One
of the benefits of the virtual NIN is to ensure no third party may carry out
any verification, hiding behind a proxy (and without the knowledge of the NIMC,
being the Custodian of Identity).
”And
also generated Token or Virtual NIN is unintelligent, completely random with no
correlation to the NIN and cannot be reverse engineered, even by a Quantum
Computer.
“The
NIN holder is the only exclusive issuer of NIN and cannot be delegated,
“Pantami said.
He
said anonymization was also catered for with the attachment of the UserID of
the verifier to every verification request, adding that no NIN, no
verification.
Pantami
said NIN tokens are MDA or merchant-specific and expire after a set period of
time, saying that a token generated for company A cannot be utilized by company
B.
Abubakar
said that the aim of the programme was to rub minds with stakeholders to ensure
understanding of the product and buy-in by all.
“We
must continue to reinforce the need for every Nigerian to have a digital
identity, irrespective of social class or economic status, improve access to
all and ensure continuous protection of privacy and data of our citizens and
other enrollees.
”We
must sustain the momentum by creating continuous awareness programs and
sensitizing of the public."
Also
speaking, the Technical Consultant of NIMC, Mr Tunji Durodola said the Digital
Token was designed to replace the 11-digit NIN for every usage for everyday
usage.
He said NIN had been shared and stored by various entities mostly without the knowledge consent or consent of the ID holder or the custodian of identity in Nigeria, NIMC.
“Some
of the pre-requisite of tokenization, one needs a NIN issued by NIMC, the
mobile number registered in Nigeria and linked to your NIN,” he said.
The NIMC
Director of legal, regulatory and compliance services, Hajiya Hadiza Dagabana
said there was a need for sensitization of the public.
She
said that the tokenization would be properly disseminated in various local
dialects for better understanding.
Tokenization
consists of 16 Alpha-numeric characters. starting and ending with two letters
of the Alphabet.
It
is issued by an ID Holder, either via the NIMC MWS Mobile ID apps or via USSD
on a feature phone and only by the NIMC, while a mobile number linked to an In
is required to participate.
A
minor Number linked to a NIN is required to participate.