The National Identification Authority (NIA) has warned to the general public not to permit institutions to make photocopies of their Ghana Cards, describing the act as unlawful.
According to the NIA, institutions must instead subscribe to its official biometric verification platform to access and authenticate data properly, rather than relying on unauthorized physical copies.
Speaking at a press briefing, the Head of Corporate Affairs at the NIA, Williams Emmanuel Ampomah Dallas, emphasized the risks and illegality of the practice.
He added that the NIA does not endorse what he termed as “ocular verification” — the visual inspection of physical cards — as it is prone to fraud and misinformation.
Dallas asserted that NIA systems are in place to ensure secure and efficient verification, and that public cooperation is key to safeguarding the integrity of the Ghana Card system.
“Unfortunately, most of these institutions, instead of subscribing to our verification platform and getting the right information and all that, they have resorted to taking the physical data cards from applicants and making photocopies for them. We want to use this medium to plead with the public, do not allow any institution to photocopy your Ghana card. They are supposed to approach us and get aborted. So we give them the data for them to do proper biometric verification. We do not accept institutions that are doing ocular verification. We can only get here if the public refuses to give them their physical Ghana cards for photocopies.”
