COURBEVOIE, France, April 9, 2024/ — IDEMIA Smart Identity has renewed its commitment to Nigeria’s National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) by implementing an upgrade of the entire biometric identification system, which will accommodate 250 million records. This project, supported by the World Bank through its ID4D initiative, will ensure that each citizen’s identity in the civil database remains unique.
On February 28, 2024, IDEMIA Smart Identity and NIMC agreed to renew their long-standing collaboration and upgrade NIMC’s biometric system to become the most advanced biometric system in the world, comparable only with Aadhaar in India. The powerful biometric matching system will be able to handle 1 million 1:1 and 1:N identity verification searches per day.
The initial system was designed to support 100 million records but has already reached around 90 million records and requires this extension to address the whole Nigerian population. In context, NIMC is already positioned to achieve the sustainable development goals target set for 2030 by the United Nations, which calls for a legal identity for all by the year 2030.*
In addition, the system upgrade is going to allow NIMC to be compliant with OSIA, an open standard set of interfaces (APIs) that enables seamless connectivity between all components of the identity management ecosystem.
“We are very proud to continue our long-standing collaboration with NIMC for the greater good of Nigeria’s growing population. The new powerful system is future-proof and will ensure that all Nigerians have access to a secured, trusted identity, enabling them to exercise their rights and responsibilities as a citizen. Moreover, this contract, in the most populous country in Africa, demonstrates IDEMIA’s capability to deploy its technologies on a very large scale,” explains Olivier Charlanes, Senior Vice President of Middle East and Africa at IDEMIA Smart Identity.
“Taking this next step in the enhancement of our system with IDEMIA Smart Identity was a natural choice for us. We wanted to ensure that we deliver the best-in-class solution to our fellow Nigerians, and the pure power of the biometric matching we will receive ensures that the solution is future-proof for our growing population,” explains Engr. Abisoye Coker-Odusote, CEO, National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) and Chairman of the OSIA Advisory Committee.
The idea of national identity card project was first conceived in 1967 under the then Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon with the view to identifying ”the Igbos” who had refused to heed the call to return to the East during the civil war.
