National ID Card can Stem Financial Fraud- Onyemenam

Chris Onyemenam, director general of National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has described the national identity management and the national identity card as systems built to curb  advanced fee fraud otherwise 419 and other financial crimes in Nigeria.

He made the remarks while during a presentation at Card Expo 2014 on the imperatives of the NIMC project on deepening the economy, especially in the financial sector.

He said, NIMC has been working assiduously to ensure all chips and features in the card, that will be soon ready for distribution to the public soon, meet all international standards.

According to Barr Onyemenam, the card contains three important features that will safeguard users from fraudsters.

He said, specifically, “There are at least three biometrics attributes in the card-the eye-reads, facial recognition and fingerprint. It will be difficult for you to beat this card. When you combine it with what you own, which is the Personal Identification Number (PIN), and what you have which is a smartcard it has a public key infrastructure built into it, even the encryptions methodology has ensured that you cannot put your card besides any of the smartphones and the data will be taken out.

“That card cannot easily be hacked into; we have taken time to build the PKI around it in line with global best practices. That card has 18 security features and the 19th one is a complex security feature while the chip is 80kb and defeats all Automated Teller Machine (ATM) cards around now.

“I am talking about a card that if you want to manufacture it you must take permission from NIMC; from any part of the world you may be. The features are recognized based on the global best practices and by institutions whose job it is to recognize such cards.

“International Telecommunications Union (ITU), for instance, knows about this card and there is a certain number that once they check the card against a device and it shows the number they will know it is genuine. That is in any part of the world. That is the level of thoroughness and meticulous we have been in trying to ensure the card meets standards”.

He said NIMC is aware that some hackers are lying in wait if users, however, the security features will prevent such.

“We know that there are people who are keenly watching and targeting the period to start tracking the cards for advanced fee fraud. Advanced fee fraud, we know, is not committed by one person. It takes two people to commit the fraud. It is easy for someone to say I am the DG of NIMC; however, when the card is subject to scrutiny that the authenticity of the card and ownership is revealed,” he said.