It is insane for Nigeria Banks to ask Nigerians to verify bank accounts by fingerprinting, and worst of all to make it mandatory that people must fingerprint to access their bank accounts. I am very sure this idea of mass data collection was sold to Nigeria by the west.

It is just inconceivable that a group of Nigerians could just sign a contract with a foreign company and ask Nigerians to submit such sensitive information to them. It completely shows a lack of awareness of the Nigeria leadership and zero-knowledge of what is really happening across the globe.

There is nowhere in the world where such banking model is used and srictly enforced .The disadvanages far outweight its advanatages . It is a complete poor error of judgement by the Nigeria leadership, and Nigeria urgently need to withdraw such contract and destroy the data already collected. It is a dead and bad policy and should never be used on Nigerians in the first instance.

Fingerprint is a personal and unique thing to everyone, and it should only be collected in extreme cases to solve crime, and destroyed after a certain period. There are always policies for the safeguard of such information when they are collected. Obviously many questions need to be answered. Who keep this data? Where is it kept? How secure are the servers? What duration are they kept for? Who destroy them and how will they be destroyed? who can access this data. I am sure none of those policies are in place. Nigeria is not advanced enough to embark on such a risky project.Unlike password which can easily be changed, fingerprint cannot be changed, and many things can go wrong with fingerprints information. When hackers steal your fingerprints, they’ve got an unchangeable credential that lets them spoof your identity for life.

In a word of increasingly cybercrime and masssive espionage by the western world, such information will be extremely valuable to them. Having details of over 100 million Nigerian with a few clicks spell doom for Africa most populous nation. Such data could be accessed anywhere in the world if it falls on the wrong hands. Take for example,the west can scan through the Data to identify anyone in Nigeria . This information could be used to do anything!! Its use is endless . Biometric data collection of every Nigeria and stored in a server owned and managed by the west is dangerous, expercially for a country with very poor IT reputation .

Nigeria leaders are always interested in what they will get from any project. I am sure this project will rake in some millions to some selected few at the extreme detriment of the future of Nigerians.

Do you know what it is to have the Full data of over 200 Million Nigerians in a Disk and sold to the westen world.? The main point here is data safety and privacy.


NIGERIANS-WAKE UP!!


Mike Tobi- IT Security specialist, pentester and an ethical hacker Living Abroad

Nice write up