Nigeria's SIM Card Registration Promise

The NigerianCommunications Commission’s (NCC) SIM Card Registration in my opinion could be a laudable step in the right direction for the nations development. Through the exercise, the NCC has provided the country with what could become the kernel for a Citizens Identification System and national development information database.

This of course means alignment with the NationalIdentity Management Commission (NIMC) and National Population Commission (NPC) which I believe is already happening as well as co-ordination with other citizen information databases including Driver’s License with the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Voters Registration with the IndependentNational Electoral Commission (INEC), Criminal Records databases with the security agencies and Financial Transactions databases of the Banks & other financial institutions etc. As provider of choice for Information and Communications Technologies infrastructure to Nigerian Government Ministries Departments and Agencies, Galaxy Backbone will no doubt have a key role to play in the mix. Should such a network of databases be created, it would present Nigeria with the much desired and long talk about robust system of identification of individuals on which to build the sophisticated and intricate economic information systems of modern nations.

The benefits of such advancement are potentially enormous. The availability of financial data from such an integration exercise could create the backbone of the oft desired but yet to be achieved Consumer Credit market. It would give Financial Institutions the courage to readily provide citizens with access to longer term mortgages and other types of consumer credit facilities as they gain access to a robust data set of citizen identity, spending patterns and historical financial behavior from trusted sources. Add to this current efforts by the CBN ‘cashless’ project to make mobile payments a real payment option in the economy and the availability of a trust-enhancing database that provides verifiable user identification to bring confidence to the system with its attendant benefits to the economy become clearer.

A key point everyone correctly highlights when talking about SIM registration is National security. With terrorism on the increase the need to better manage security has become overriding. Integrating the SIM card registration subscribers into a national security database network will provide the basis for a lawful interception regime in the country. This could potentially help our security agencies investigating criminal activities in the country and even become proactive in the prevention of crime as well. On the individual front, the International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) stored on the SIM card can be linked to the registered users device International Mobile Equipment Identity(IMEI) so that if it is stolen phone, it can be reported and the device blacklisted by the operator using the IMEI rendering the phone useless to the thieves.

Thanks to the SIM card registration exercise, Nigeria can now estimate the number of subscribers in the country more accurately but it’s important to note that the real benefits from the exercise as highlighted will only be realized if the collaboration, integration and shared access to the various institutional databases that will make up such a national network of databases can be achieved. In addition the attendant data protection requirements for the privacy and security of individual citizens must be considered paramount especially for avoidance of abusive use. Finally the technical infrastructure, skills and capability for ensuring the integrity of the database network, maintaining it and keeping it up to date must constantly be refreshed.

Will the different stakeholders identified be able to rise to the task? Can they foster the co-operation between agencies with proper definition of functions ensuring there is no duplication of effort? Will we have the rights of the individuals considered as we collate and integrate data on them? Will access to this data be restricted to those who have a legitimate right to use?

I leave the answers to these questions to you…..