Ugo Aliogo
IDEMIA Smart Identity has renewed its commitment to Nigeria’s National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) by implementing an upgrade of the entire biometric identification system, which would accommodate 250 million records.
According to a statement, the project, supported by the World Bank through its ID4D initiative, would ensure that each citizen’s identity in the civil database remains unique.
IDEMIA Smart Identity and NIMC agreed to renew their long-standing collaboration and upgrade NIMC’s biometric system to become the most advanced biometric system in the world, comparable only with Aadhaar in India.
The initial system was designed to support 100 million records but has already reached around 90 million records and requires this extension to address the whole Nigerian population.
NIMC is already positioned to achieve the sustainable development goals target set for 2030 by the United Nations, which calls for a legal identity for all by the year 2030.
The system upgrade is going to allow NIMC to be compliant with OSIA, an open standard set of interfaces (APIs) that enables seamless connectivity between all components of the identity management ecosystem.
The Senior Vice President of Middle East and Africa at IDEMIA Smart Identity, Olivier Charlanes stated: “We are very proud to continue our long-standing collaboration with NIMC for the greater good of Nigeria’s growing population.
“The new powerful system is future-proof and will ensure that all Nigerians have access to a secured, trusted identity, enabling them to exercise their rights and responsibilities as a citizen. Moreover, this contract, in the most populous country in Africa, demonstrates IDEMIA’s capability to deploy its technologies on a very large scale.”
On his part, the Chief Executive Officer, NIMC, Engr. Abisoye Coker-Odusote, was quoted to have said: “Taking this next step in the enhancement of our system with IDEMIA Smart Identity was a natural choice for us. We wanted to ensure that we deliver the best-in-class solution to our fellow Nigerians, and the pure power of the biometric matching we will receive ensures that the solution is future-proof for our growing population.”
