By Olayomi Koiki

A private website, AnyVerify has been found trading Nigerians’ sensitive data on government-issued documents, such as passport numbers, bank verification numbers, tax identification numbers, and driver’s licences, for as little as N100 online.
AnyVerify, opened November 2023, is a website that claims to verify the Permanent Voter Card (PVC), National Identification Number, BVN, or TIN, of Nigerians to anyone willing to pay N100.
Each request for verification costs N100, and the website has enjoyed huge visibility as it was visited  567,990 times in February and 188,360 times in April.
Paradigm Initiative (PIN), an ICT for Development and Digital Rights group, said on Thursday that it was seeking legal redress on behalf of Nigerians for a breach of data privacy rights of Nigerians who trusted the government institutions enough to keep their sensitive details safe.
Vindich Legal, the legal partners of Paradigm Initiative, have served a pre-action notice to the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC), the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) and the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF).
It is unclear how AnyVerify, unaffiliated with any government ministry, got access to the classified data of hundreds of millions of Nigerians to the point of monetising it.
The PIN was concerned that Nigerians’ information getting hawked on an unauthorised platform could aid kidnappers and internet fraudsters to commit crimes that could threaten national security.
It is seeking an order directing a thorough investigation and publication of findings into AnyVerify’s activities and an order for all affected government agencies to compensate persons whose data was leaked.
The initiative also sought a court order mandating all government institutions to adopt technical measures to secure citizens’ sensitive data.
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