By Christiana Ekpa
The House of Representatives, Wednesday called for the protection of telecommunication subscribers from breach of their privacies, leading to fraud and loss of monies.
The House equally mandated its Committees on Telecommunications, and Banking and Currency to look into the cases of people who have fallen victims to breach of their privacy, and identity theft, as well as identify inadequacies in the relevant regulatory frameworks, and proffer solutions.
The House resolution followed a motion sponsored by Hon. Olusola Fatoba, who said that by standard practice, telephone numbers and email addresses are usually required to open a Bank account; and that in line with the regulations of the Nigeria Communications Commission on dormant or inactive lines, network operators have the right and may reassign SIM cards and phone numbers once they are inactive for some time without recourse to the previous owners.
He argued that though there existed the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation (NDPR), which seeks to safeguard the rights of natural persons to data privacy and foster safe-conduct for transactions involving the exchange of personal data, among others “the occurrence of a breach of privacy, cases of fraud and consequently financial losses are on the increase”.
He said many Nigerians have fallen victims to illegal and unauthorized deductions of funds from their bank accounts because their financial institutions keep sending their bank account transaction details to their hitherto phone numbers which have been reassigned to new subscribers, thus opening a dangerous window for fraudulent activities.
According to the lawmaker, while it is the responsibility of bank account owners to ensure that their linked phone numbers are changed with the financial institutions whenever their phones get lost or when they stop using the linked numbers, he said a large number of bank account owners and telephone subscribers in Nigeria are not aware about privacy issues and data protection, and as such are vulnerable….”.
The joint committee is directed to turn in its report within four weeks, for the House’s further legislative action.
