Nigeria offered US, others full access to citizens’ biometric data – WikiLeaks

Posted by admin National Politics, Top Stories, Wikileaks Wednesday, September 7th, 2011

Some officials in the office of the National Security Adviser once offered the United States Government full access to the biometric information stored in the international passports of Nigerians.

The promise, according to a US government cable, released by whistleblower, Wikileaks, was made in 2007. The cable, Nigeria: Government practices – Info collection, Screening and Sharing, was prepared by the US embassy in Abuja that year, but released by Wikileaks Thursday last week.

It says, “Staff in the Office of the National Security Adviser have assured PolOff (political officer) that they intend to share the public key for reading biometric passport data with the USG and other governments.”

Introduced in July, 2007, the ECOWAS e-passport has a chip that stores biometric data in the form of fingerprints and digital photographs embedded electronically.

The practice, a research done by our correspondent, is for countries to exchange public keys that would allow border officials in foreign countries to read a ‘biometric signature’ to ascertain the authenticity of passports.

The hidden chip embedded in the centre page of e-passports stores the holder’s digital photograph, name, gender, date of birth, nationality, passport number, and the passport expiry date. This data is the same data that appears on the data page of the passport. However, the chips also store biometric data like measurements of the holder’s face and the retina, which most countries do not share.

The website of the Canadian passport issuing authority, for example, assures the citizens of that country that no personal data on passports will be submitted to foreign governments.

The website says, “The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has created a system to facilitate this information exchange. Called the ICAO Public Key Directory (PKD), it is a repository where participating countries, like Canada, deposit the data other countries need to ensure ePassports are authentic.

“The ICAO PKD does not contain any personal information about any passport holder. It only contains information to confirm that the ePassport has been issued by a bona fide authority and that it has not been tampered with.”

An information booklet prepared by the German government for its citizens also assures that foreign border officials would have limited access to their information.

“To read the fingerprints, foreign countries need an express authorization. Germany will decide for each individual country which ones should be authorized to read fingerprints from German passports,” it says.

The US cable gives the impression that what the staff in the NSA office promised was an unrestricted access to the biometric data of all passport-holding Nigerians. The cable says though Nigerian passport holders have a right to their biometric information, they are often not able to do so.

It says, “Theoretically individuals have the right to request access (or sue to get access) to sensitive data about themselves held by Nigerian government agencies, but in practice it is quite difficult. Often the government of Nigeria will determine that such information is a matter of national security, and the inquiry will then die. There are privacy laws on the books for protecting access to sensitive personal data which apply to all civil servants. In the future, access to the e-passport database should be easier.”

The cable also says that the Nigeria Police Force has no database on its officers and men, let alone criminals.

It says, “The Nigerian Police Force does not even have a database of its own members, let alone a sophisticated, networked, electronic criminal or watchlist database. Officials at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and police have admitted to INL Off that no criminal database in fact exists within the country.”

The Public Relations Officer of the Nigerian Immigration Services, Joachim Olumba, confirmed the development, saying the measure had been in force since the introduction of the e-passport.

“Since Nigeria is an ICAO country, the biometric data of all passport is accessive by every ICAO country and that is why the US has confidence in our e-passport because it is ICAO compliant,” Olumba said.

-Punchwp_posts