Namecheap has suspended private website selling Nigerians’ NIN among other personal data.
NewsOnline Nigeria reports that Xpressverify, an identity verification website that makes money from selling out the personal information of Nigerians, has been suspended by its domain registrar.
This Nigeria news platform understands that this development follows a report by FIJ detailing how Xpressverify had unrestricted access to the National Identification Database and personal details of Nigerians despite being a privately owned website.
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Namecheap Incorporated, the domain registrar through which the website’s domain was bought, hinted at the domain suspension via its official X handle on Sunday.
The domain has been suspended. Thank you for reporting the issue!
— Namecheap.com (@Namecheap) March 17, 2024
However, NewsOnline Nigeria reports that this website might still be available to some individuals, despite the domain’s suspension. According to the domain registrar, this might be due to a phenomenon called propagation.
Typically, requests to view websites do not go to host servers directly. Depending on the location of the person searching, requests to view a website go to the memory of the local internet service providers to source information.
It takes 24 to 72 hours for these internet service providers to update their caches. It could therefore take the same amount of time for the suspension to take effect for internet users in some locations.
NIMC is no longer under @FMCIDENigeria but our @ndpcngr will work with colleagues at @nimc_ng to investigate this immediately. Thanks for sharing.
— Dr. 'Bosun Tijani (@bosuntijani) March 17, 2024
Meanwhile, NewsOnline Nigeria reports that Bosun Tijani, the minister of information and digital economy, has stated that the Nigeria Data Protection Commission will work with the National Identity Management Commission to investigate the situation.
