The Federal Government plans to introduce digital token comprising 16 alphabets and numbers to replace the current 11-digit National Identity Number, NIN, effective January, 2022.
This was disclosed by the National Identity Management Commission,
NIMC.
According to NIMC, companies and agencies are allowed to only store
and verify virtual NIN or digitoken, which is a set of 16 alpha-numeric
characters issued exclusively by an ID holder with NIN.
The virtual NIN is issued by an ID holder who has onboarded the NIMC
MobileID application or generated via the USSD service. The Digitoken
is issued to a specific verification entity and may be only verified by that
entity and no one else.
It said the NIN is non-transferable and expires after 72 hours. It further
revealed that minors could generate a virtual NIN from their parents’
profile on the NIMC application, while it will become illegal and
punishable to the full extent of the law to store or attempt to verify the
raw NIN.
