NIN: Telcos to pay N200,000 fine for non-validated subscribers

By Oladele Owodina

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has warned that telecommunication companies will pay a fine of N200,000 fine for failure to verify and validate biometric, National Identity Number (NIN), and other personal information of subscribers.

NCC disclosed this in a proposed draft regulation on registration of telephone subscribers 2021 published in its website.

According to NCC in Section 19 of the draft document, mobile communications services providers must ensure that NINs are verified and validated before activation.

Telecommunication companies who breach the requirement will pay a penalty of N200, 000.

“Any licensee who fails to capture, or who preregisters, register, deregister or transmit the details of any individual or corporate subscribers to the Central Database as specified in these Regulations or as may be stipulated from time to time by the Commission is liable to a penalty of N200,000.00 for each subscription medium,” the draft reads.

“A licensee who activates any Subscription Medium without capturing, registering and transmitting the personal information to the Central Database commits an offence and shall on conviction be liable to a fine of N200,000.00 for each unregistered activated Subscription Medium.

“A Licensee who fails to verify and validate biometric, NIN and other personal information before activation is liable to a penalty of N200, 000 for each subscription medium in breach of these requirements.”

Recall that the federal government had in September 2020 asked Nigerians to link their National Identity Number, NIN with their SIM cards.

Government had since then extended the deadline for NIN registration and subscriber identity module (SIM) integration exercise severally to pave way for everyone to be captured.

January 19, 2021, was the initial deadline, but it was moved to February 9, later April 6, again to May 6, also to June 30, later to July 26 and now October 31 this year.