Nigeria Offered Us, Others Full Access To Citizens’ Biometric Data – Wikileaks

As if we are not convinced that bad leadership will be the death of us all in Nigeria here are more reasons:

Our government offers foreign government full access to all our biometric data:
"The hidden chip embedded in the centre page of e-passports stores the holder’s digital photograph, name, gender, date of birth, nationality, passport number, and the passport expiry date. This data is the same data that appears on the data page of the passport. However, the chips also store biometric data like measurements of the holder’s face and the retina, which most countries do not share. "

But will not allow Nigerians to get access to even their own personal info:
“Theoretically individuals have the right to request access (or sue to get access) to sensitive data about themselves held by Nigerian government agencies, but in practice it is quite difficult. Often the government of Nigeria will determine that such information is a matter of national security, and the inquiry will then die. There are privacy laws on the books for protecting access to sensitive personal data which apply to all civil servants. In the future, access to the e-passport database should be easier.”

Here is another one - they want to fight terrorism, but don't even know who is in the police force:
“The Nigerian Police Force does not even have a database of its own members, let alone a sophisticated, networked, electronic criminal or watchlist database. Officials at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and police have admitted to INL Off that no criminal database in fact exists within the country.”

http://www.punchng.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art201109083262314
By Adelani Adepegba
Thursday, 8 Sep 2011

Some officials in the office of the National Security Adviser once offered the United States Government full access to the biometric information stored in the international passports of Nigerians.

The promise, according to a US government cable, released by whistleblower, Wikileaks, was made in 2007. The cable, Nigeria: Government practices – Info collection, Screening and Sharing, was prepared by the US embassy in Abuja that year, but released by Wikileaks Thursday last week.

It says, “Staff in the Office of the National Security Adviser have assured PolOff (political officer) that they intend to share the public key for reading biometric passport data with the USG and other governments.”

Introduced in July, 2007, the ECOWAS e-passport has a chip that stores biometric data in the form of fingerprints and digital photographs embedded electronically.

The practice, a research done by our correspondent, is for countries to exchange public keys that would allow border officials in foreign countries to read a ‘biometric signature’ to ascertain the authenticity of passports.

The hidden chip embedded in the centre page of e-passports stores the holder’s digital photograph, name, gender, date of birth, nationality, passport number, and the passport expiry date. This data is the same data that appears on the data page of the passport. However, the chips also store biometric data like measurements of the holder’s face and the retina, which most countries do not share.

The website of the Canadian passport issuing authority, for example, assures the citizens of that country that no personal data on passports will be submitted to foreign governments.

The website says, “The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has created a system to facilitate this information exchange. Called the ICAO Public Key Directory (PKD), it is a repository where participating countries, like Canada, deposit the data other countries need to ensure ePassports are authentic.

“The ICAO PKD does not contain any personal information about any passport holder. It only contains information to confirm that the ePassport has been issued by a bona fide authority and that it has not been tampered with.”

An information booklet prepared by the German government for its citizens also assures that foreign border officials would have limited access to their information.

“To read the fingerprints, foreign countries need an express authorization. Germany will decide for each individual country which ones should be authorized to read fingerprints from German passports,” it says.

The US cable gives the impression that what the staff in the NSA office promised was an unrestricted access to the biometric data of all passport-holding Nigerians. The cable says though Nigerian passport holders have a right to their biometric information, they are often not able to do so.

It says, “Theoretically individuals have the right to request access (or sue to get access) to sensitive data about themselves held by Nigerian government agencies, but in practice it is quite difficult. Often the government of Nigeria will determine that such information is a matter of national security, and the inquiry will then die. There are privacy laws on the books for protecting access to sensitive personal data which apply to all civil servants. In the future, access to the e-passport database should be easier.”

The cable also says that the Nigeria Police Force has no database on its officers and men, let alone criminals.

It says, “The Nigerian Police Force does not even have a database of its own members, let alone a sophisticated, networked, electronic criminal or watchlist database. Officials at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and police have admitted to INL Off that no criminal database in fact exists within the country.”

The Public Relations Officer of the Nigerian Immigration Services, Joachim Olumba, confirmed the development, saying the measure had been in force since the introduction of the e-passport.

“Since Nigeria is an ICAO country, the biometric data of all passport is accessive by every ICAO country and that is why the US has confidence in our e-passport because it is ICAO compliant,” Olumba said.

These guys are infact ready to sell us.



LOL

ROFLMAO!


Nigeria egbelele ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Nigeria biko mi

The US cable gives the impression that what the staff in the NSA office promised was an unrestricted access to the biometric data of all passport-holding Nigerians. The cable says though Nigerian passport holders have a right to their biometric information, they are often not able to do so.

Awesome. We all indeed have inferiority complex.


White Power baby!

Black is fuuuuugly!

Where is the bin?

what's the big deal.

nigerians and africans in general have been selling themselves since time immemorial and continue to do so today.

nothing new.

are these wikileaks sure they're releasing anything which wasnt previously known before.

hahahahahahaha abeg make they carry us do whatever they want after all we are already finished.

In case the gravity of the below did not sink in, think about this: al qaeda probably has a better electronic database of its network than Nigeria of its police.

[size=24pt]Shame!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!![/size]

Here is another one - they want to fight terrorism, but don't even know who is in the police force:
“The Nigerian Police Force does not even have a database of its own members, let alone a sophisticated, networked, electronic criminal or watchlist database. Officials at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and police have admitted to INL Off that no criminal database in fact exists within the country.”

Nothing New!!

Funny thing is that Only Internet Nigerians are aware of all these Wikileaks thing, and just a few.

Most regular Nigerians on the ground here don't even know what Wikileaks is, it took a cousin of mine almost 2 days to learn that Boko Haram bombed UN building in Abuja

He lives in Lagos o, I told him on the second day. 


His reason? --> NEPA has failed to fix their busted transformer so no light for 3weeks and counting. They only use their i-better-pass-my-neighbour Generator at night to watch home videos and charge phones (phone with no money to buy recharge card)
before sleeping.

Only a few percentage of people read newspapers and Many are borderline illiterate, so these things carry little weight.

Ignorance is killing my people. And politicians use that against us.

Sorry.

They sold us way back. This people are either very foolish and ignorant.

htajz:

hahahahahahaha abeg make they carry us do whatever they want after all we are already finished.

ROFLMAO

Very sad sha

Nigeria have been sold long time ago to the western imperialist,  jonathan goodluck is just a humble houseboy making sure his white masters are seeing good returns on their investments. what wee need in nigeria is Gadaffi as our leader and we adopt the rules and laws of countries like singapore and malaysia

I thought Fomer President Gowon once called Nigerian children worthless compared to US children, right?

So nothing new

Here is another one - they want to fight terrorism, but don't even know who is in the police force:
 
“The Nigerian Police Force does not even have a database of its own members, let alone a sophisticated, networked, electronic criminal or watchlist database. Officials at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and police have admitted to INL Off that no criminal database in fact exists within the country.”

LOOOOOOL

And we want to dash out 7 Billion dollars to poor countries ?


We don kolo

Nigeria is being ruled by ZOMBIES !

~Bluetooth:

Nigeria is being ruled by ZOMBIES !

What about Nigerians themselves? They had an opportunity but blew it. I.D.I.O.T.S!!! Little wonder the Yanks provided support to ensure that zombie got the keys to Aso Rock

So the US govt (indeed all foreign nations) can have access and even store our Biometrics but the Appeal Court rules that the same biometrics cannot be used by a petitioner in the election tribunal?

Nobody outside these shores will take us serious as a nation

well thats part one. the sequel is coming, ncc sim registration. not everyone has a passport, but lots of people have sims, and they out number those with epassport.

We should have voted for Buhari. He would never have done that you know.

koruji:


Here is another one - they want to fight terrorism, but don't even know who is in the police force:
“The Nigerian Police Force does not even have a database of its own members, let alone a sophisticated, networked, electronic criminal or watchlist database. Officials at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and police have admitted to INL Off that no criminal database in fact exists within the country.”

And you believe this?

They can give it to the US but not to CPC, why?

And people still wont do something about this

US,in one way or the other are trying to unite the world ,remember the coming together of all the countries of the world to make use of one common currency,one economy even one ruler according to the bible
Guys trace the track everything happening is all connected.
Beware for the end is near!!!

Interesting

the truth is that  if nigeria government lost or damage their data base,this wicked westerner will still have it in their system and they will forever have it which nothing  can delete or tamper with,and if u don't have int.passport,u will definately own a gsm phone,nigeria citizens is gone.

another reason why i dont want to register my sim

u2 1 day:

well thats part one. the sequel is coming, ncc sim registration. not everyone has a passport, but lots of people have sims, and they out number those with epassport.

I've been telling everbody about how dangerous this SIM card registration nonsense is for months and people have been telling me that I'm paranoid or cräzy.

Despite all we know about how corrupt and useless our government is how are so many people willing to give up their names, addresses, phone numbers, pictures and fingerprints to the PDP? Sometimes, I wonder if I'm the only sane person left in this country.

u2 1 day:

well thats part one. the sequel is coming, ncc sim registration. not everyone has a passport, but lots of people have sims, and they out number those with epassport.

I've been telling everbody about how dangerous this SIM card registration nonsense is for months and people have been telling me that I'm paranoid or cräzy.

Despite all we know about how corrupt and useless our government is how are so many people willing to give up their names, addresses, phone numbers, pictures and fingerprints to the PDP? Sometimes, I wonder if I'm the only sane person left in this country.

Sim card registration should not be optional.

I assume we're referring to cell phone sim cards.

Nigeria is the only country i know of where cell phones arent registered to their owners.

tpia@:

Sim card registration should not be optional.

I assume we're referring to cell phone sim cards.

Nigeria is the only country i know of where cell phones arent registered to their owners.

I'll give you $1billion is you can name 5 countries where pay as you go sims are required to be registered. I'll give you another $1billion are fewer than 4 of them are backwards 3rd world countries where the people are too hungry to care that they are being spied on.

Even post-911 America doesn't require you to register your SIM. Only those with contracts need to give up their info for payment purposes and the government still needs a court order to access it.

It's so sad to see even intelligent, tech-savvy Nigerians like you showing such ignorance about such an important privacy issue. Your government is slowly turning into a tyrannical, USSR-style, big brother corruptocracy and you're busy cheering them on. May God save us!of them are backwards 3rd world countries where the people are too hungry to care that they are being spied on.

Even post-911 America doesn't require you to register your SIM. Only those with contracts need to give up their info for payment purposes and the government still needs a court order to access it.

It's so sad to see even intelligent, tech-savvy Nigerians like you showing such ignorance about such an important privacy issue. Your government is slowly turning into a tyrannical, USSR-style, big brother corruptocracy and you're busy cheering them on. May God save us!

The same country that denied CPC access to the materials used in the last elections, for screening and verifications, is a ready tool in the hands of foreign governments. Nigerians, brace up, and let's face this 21st century slave masters. Revolution! Revolution!! Revolution!!!

^Not sure what your rant is about but i repeat- sim card registration should not be optional, especially in a crime-prone country like nigeria.

If the system being operated now is a pay as you go one, then that needs to stop and they should replace it with a contract based model same as what obtains in other countries.

Pay as you go do not constitute the bulk of cell phone service elsewhere and its actually a very wasteful and expensive type of mobile phone usage.

This is so unfortunate. Every policies our leaders make puts us the citizens in a vulnerable position. Damn!