Telecommunications providers now face an N200,000 penalty if they fail to check and validate subscribers’ biometric, National Identity numbers (NIN), and other personal data. The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) revealed this on its website in a suggested draft rule on telephone subscriber registration for 2021.
In September 2020, the federal government requested that Nigerians link their national identity numbers, or NINs, with their SIM cards to ensure seamless integration.
Since then, the government has repeatedly extended the deadlines for NIN registration and SIM integration exercises to ensure that everyone is recorded.
The deadline was originally set for January 19, 2021, but it was pushed back to February 9, April 6, May 6, June 30, July 26, and now October 31 this year.
Mobile communications service providers must guarantee that NINs are checked and confirmed before activation, according to NCC in Section 19 of the draft document, and those who fail to do so will face a penalty of N200, 000.
The Commission further stated that telecoms that fail to register users with the central database, as well as those who activate subscriptions without proper registration of such subscribers, will face a penalty.
“Any licensee who fails to capture, preregister, 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 per subscription medium,” according to the draft.
“A licensee who activates any Subscription Medium without capturing, registering, and transferring the personal information to the Central Database commits an offense and is subject to a punishment of N200,000.00 per unregistered active Subscription Medium if found guilty.
“A Licensee who fails to verify and validate biometric, NIN, and other personal information before activation is subject to a N200,000 penalty for any subscription medium that fails to comply with these requirements.”
In October 2015, the European Commission enforced charges on all mobile phone networks for failing to comply with the SIM deactivation directive.
MTN was fined N102.2 million, Globacom was fined N7.4 million, Etisalat (formerly 9mobile) was fined N7 million, and Airtel was fined N3.8 million.
MTN was fined N1.04 trillion later for failing to deactivate 5.1 million unregistered lines.
Following MTN’s repeated apologies, the NCC decreased the amount to N330 billion on the condition that MTN list on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), a criterion that the telco has already met.
MTN began paying N275 billion in 2018 and paid the remaining N55 billion in 2019.
