In spite of a claim by the National Communications
Authority (NCA) that it needed to capture a second set of bio data for SIM
registration to ensure a robust SIM Register, Techfocus24 can confirm that the
bio data being captured as part of the ongoing SIM registration is not being
verified against that of the National Identification Authority (NIA).
It would be recalled that when NCA and the
the Communications Minister, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful insisted on the Ghana Card
being the only valid ID for SIM registration, it generated huge public debate,
but they insisted that the Ghana Card is the only one of its kind, having the
details of all other national IDs, plus fingerprints and digital address.
Ironically, however, the NCA and the
Minister, who claim Ghana Card had all it took for SIM registration, introduced
the collection of a second set of bio data with an App built by their private
sector partner(s). Their excuse-in-chief was that they needed that data to
match the NIA database in order to ensure a robust SIM register.
They therefore charged GHS5 for every
single SIM card registered in this country, payable either by the telco that
captured the bio data or by the individual who chooses to do self registration
on a version of the App placed on Google Play Store.
Even though the NCA and
the Minister claimed that the second set of bio data was going to be verified
against the NIA database, this writer can say on authority that till date, more
than one year into the SIM registration process, not a single biodata captured
with the NCA-sponsored App has been verified against what is stored with NIA.
This is not even far-fetched as the
Executive Secretary of NIA, Professor Kenneth Attafuah even stated in a leaked
letter to industry stakeholders that NIA could not vouch for the integrity of
the biodata being collected by the NCA for SIM registration, so they could not
verify it against the NIA’s bio database.
There may be several technical reasons why
NIA could not verify the bio data collected by the NCA, but the most obvious
one is that whereas NIA captured actual fingerprints via a touch process, the
NCA-sponsored App only took pictures of people’s upper palm in the name of
capturing their fingerprint.
Because the two methods of capture are
different, it is either impossible or would be very, very difficult to match
the two for the purposes of verification.
At some point, the Communications Minister
attempted to overstep her boundaries by trying to whip NIA into line to obey
her SIM registration deadline, but the NIA boss replied and said the Authority
was not built to work with deadlines because its work is in perpetuity.
Moreover, the NIA answers to the Minister of The Interior and not of
Communications.
NITA
So, till date, the bio data captured with
the NCA-sponsored App is sitting on Kelni-GVG’s Common Monitoring
Platform at the National Information Technology Agency (NITA), which is another
agency of the Ministry of Communications and Digitalization.
There is no clear plan in sight on how to
actually verify that bio data against that of the NIA, and yet the NCA wants
Ghanaians to believe that the SIM register being built is a robust one and the
robustness is because there is a second set of bio data being verified against
the one at NIA.
NIA
and Telcos’ Data
The current status quo is that the only
verifiable database behind every SIM card registered now are nothing more than
the NIA database and the SIM card information sitting with the telcos. The bio
data captured with the NCA-sponsored App at a cost of GHS5 per SIM, which also
caused long queues and frustrations at registration centres, is playing zero
role in the ongoing SIM registration.
That bio data is not helping in anyway to
deal with the ongoing mobile money fraud and other forms of digital fraud as
promised. At best, it is being stored for the use of some people with vested
interest and not for any national course.
Again, another issue of concern is that,
between the telcos and their agents capturing the bio data with phones, the
NCA-sponsored App, Kelni-GVG’s Common Platform, and the NITA data centre,
anything could be happening to the bio data of millions of Ghanaians, including
getting into the hands of individuals who may be using it for their parochial
interest.
Fraudulent
SIM Registration
It is therefore not a surprise that strange
SIM cards are being linked to people’s Ghana Cards without their consent.
Indeed, Techfocus24 has also gathered that
the kind of fraudulent SIM registration happening now came up in the boardroom
from day one, before the process started. Some stakeholders proposed a fix from
the onset, but again, the government was in a hurry to capture their bio data
for whatever purpose so they set those concerns aside and started the process
without a proactive and preventive measure in place.
The NCA is only telling Ghanaians there is
an ongoing process to issue a short code (possibly *402#) for people to check
SIM cards linked to their cards, when the fraud is happening the media is
exposing it.
NIA
verification cost
It is also important to point out that one
of the reason’s NCA resorted to capturing its bio data was because the NIA was
said to have slapped a ridiculous charge on telcos for access to the NIA
database for the purposes of immediate verification. Because the charge was too
high, the NCA resorted to the current process, which allows individuals to do
the link by themselves on short code *404# and then go to the telco for bio
capture (which could have been avoided).
This is a matter that could have been cured
if the state had chosen to apply some of the oil revenue to fund the building
of a national ID system, instead of bringing in a private sector player like
Margins, which has invested a lot of money into the infrastructure and is no
looking to recoup that investment.
Source: Techfocus24
