The House of Representatives on Wednesday called on the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to launch investigation into alleged unsolicited and illegal linking of other phone numbers to subscribers’ National Identification Numbers (NIN) mobile lines by telecom service providers.
This is as the House also mandated its committees on Communications and Interior to conduct a thorough investigation and report back within four weeks for further legislative action.
The resolutions followed the adoption of a motion of urgent public importance moved by Rep Patrick Umoh and Prof. Julius Ihonvbere, who expressed concern that telecom operators have been linking subscribers’ NIN to other lines without their consent, exposing them to identity thefts, financial fraud, and wrongful criminal implications.
The lawmakers noted that the practice violates the Nigeria Data Protection Act, 2023, and the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation (NDPR), 2019, which guarantees the right to privacy and personal data protection.
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The lawmakers warned that innocent Nigerians have been wrongly implicated in crimes, harassed and subjected to legal troubles due to fraudulent NIN linkages by the telecom operators.
The House, while adopting the motion, mandated the NCC to investigate telecom operators allegedly involved in unauthorised NIN linking and take necessary actions against them.
The House urged the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to clarify whether telecom providers were authorised to link NINs without users’ consent and ensure compliance with data protection laws.
Contributing to the motion, a lawmaker from Ogun State, Isiaka Ayokunle, while expressing concerns over the development, said, he recently discovered that four strange phone numbers that did not belong to him, were illegally linked to his NIN.
He said, there was an urgent need to investigate the matter given the associated data privacy breach and security implications of such practices.
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