By MKPE ABANG, in Budapest, Hungary
Telecommunication subscribers in Nigeria may soon heave a huge sigh of relief as there is a glimmer of hope that the multiplicity of biometric data capturing exercises in the country could be harmonised into one single channel thereby saving them the rigours currently being experienced in data capture by various agencies of government.
But that however will depend on whether the well-meant advice of a senior official of the country’s telecommunications regulatory agency, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) is taken and implemented.
Mrs. Maryam Bayi, the NCC’s Director of Human Capital, speaking at the on-going ITU World Telecom 2015 congress in Budapest, Hungary, during a session focusing on Big Data, suggested that citizens would be more easily persuaded to provide their personal data if the biometric data capturing process was harmonised and warehoused in one common agency.
Reasoning that this in fact would be more of an incentive for citizens, Mrs. Bayi said the current situation where various agencies of government are performing biometric data capturing could in fact lead to citizens becoming worried and wary regarding whom to entrust their data to.
Currently, various agencies of the Nigerian government including the NCC, the National ID Card Management Commission (NIMC), the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the Immigration Service, among others, as well as the financial industry, have performed or are performing, one form of biometric data capturing exercise or the other, a situation that has led to many citizens, especially those in not-so-easily captured areas like the semi-urban and rural areas commonly referred to as the underserved areas, to be wary or somewhat suspicious of the repeated requests for biometric data by these agencies individually.
If the suggestion by Mrs. Bayi is taken, the Nigerian government also stands to save several billions of dollars which would be required by the various agencies to perform the crucial biometric data capturing exercises, besides the obvious benefits associated with warehousing database in a single agency for ease of access, standardisation of technology and uniformity as well as credibility of the data.
Secretary-General of the ITU, Mr. Houlin Zhao, in his opening speech said the annual event “highlights the catalytic role of information and communications technologies in meeting global challenges and driving economic growth, social progress and sustainable developments.”
He called on government leaders and stakeholders across the world to take advantage of innovations provided through the ICT industry to better the lives of citizens and increase access to social benefits.
“I encourage government officials and technology industry leaders gathered in Budapest to foster greater innovation and entrepreneurship in the ICT sector, especially among small and media sized businesses,” he stated.
“The potential to drive economic growth, social good plus human development has never been greater, but so too is the danger of leaving behind the unconnected,” he added.
The conference, which opened on October 12, will last till October 15. Nigeria is attending the event with a country pavilion as in previous recent editions.