The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has disclosed that it plans to deploy the NIMC Verification Service (NVS) to the insurance and pension sectors, following the successful implementation and adoption of the platform by most financial institutions in the country.
At separate forums organised by the Business Development and Commercial Services (BDCS) department, at the training centre of the NIMC headquarters in Abuja recently to demonstrate the verification procedures, Deputy General Manager of the BDCS department, Mrs. Carolyn Folami, while making presentations, noted that NIMC was committed to its mandate to be a one-stop shop for identity management in Nigeria.
While noting that NIMC was meant to regulate the identity sector and all transactions related to identity, she disclosed that part of NIMC’s mandate was to work in partnership with all institutions, including the insurance sector in Nigeria, to ensure that the National Identification Number (NIN), is used for all transactions.
She stressed the importance of the National Identity Management System, and the need to harmonise insurance companies’ databases with the National Identity Database (NIDB), adding that an insurance applet, though yet to be activated, is also included on the national e-ID card.
According to her, the application program interface (API) for the NVS is already being deployed in institutions like banks, who can query the system for over 17 million people who have enrolled for NIN and have had their details captured on the national database.
The team leader for software development, Mr. Olushola Amurawaiye, during a live presentation of the NVS, said it had two client interfaces, the standalone desktop version and the online Web version.
He explained that the NVS can be incorporated into the organisations’ software using the NVS API.
“At the point of query, data generated by the NVS to the organisation making such request is limited by the access levels granted by NIMC, and the levels range from one to five, depending on the kind and sensitivity of the identity data to be accessed.
“Authorised users can generate data from the NVS using the enrollee’s NIN only, demographics only, e-ID card only, document number only, biometrics only or both biometrics and NIN,” he said.
He further explained that insurance companies, when they come on board, could apply for desired access rights and privileges, which determine what category of verification they are allowed to conduct on an individual and what category of data they are allowed to view.