A former head of the National Identification Authority (NIA), IT Department, Osei Kwame Griffiths has revealed that the yet-to-be-introduced application (APP) for the re-registration of SIM cards has the potential to compromise data collected as part of the exercise.

He argued that there is nothing like a remote collection of biometric data in the world.

He said the use of the application will lead to the fraudulent collection of data.

Mr Griffiths made this revelation in reaction to the Minister for Communications and Digitalization, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful’s announcement that an application on android and IOS will be introduced to enable customers of the Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) do the re-registration of their SIM cards at the comfort of their homes for a fee of GHS5.

He speaking in an interview on the Ghana Yensom morning show on Accra 100.5 FM on Monday, August 1, 2022 stressed that the App will dilute the existing data collected by the MNOs.

He said the data collected so far is authentic but the introduction of the application will derail the purpose of the exercise because the App has security implications.

He said in capturing biometric data somebody must be present to capture the data per the data gathering regulations.

“In the wake of the application, who will be present to capture the biometric data of customers when using the application?” he quizzed.

He noted that the application will give people the opportunity to do fraudulent registration which will end up diluting the existing data