Jega: You can clone PVC but it won’t work

Attahiru Jega, chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), says cloning the permanent voter cards (PVCs) is of no consequence as the commission’s machines will not be able to read them.

In an interview with Abuja-based Metropole magazine, the professor of political science said the PVCs are embedded with chips that contain data and fingerprints of each individual registered voter — which means cloned ones would not work.

The Department of State Services (DSS) recently raided a facility where it alleged the All Progressives Congress (APC) was attempting to clone voters’ cards and hack into INEC’s database.

APC has vehemently denied the allegation.

Jega said: “DSS did not say INEC reported. DSS are in the business of intelligence gathering and security and evidently through their own sources had something to make them act the way that they did. We did not report it. We didn’t ask them to do it and we didn’t know anything like that was happening.

“All I can say is that I know the investment that we made on the permanent voters’ cards, and it is very difficult if not impossible for anybody to clone it. If people clone the card, how are they going to get it read? You can clone it and make it look like an INEC card visibly but the card has to be read on election day using a card reader.

“You must have the card reader and the configuration and everything to do it, and it’s simply impossible. But that notwithstanding, this does not take away from the security agency for trying to do what they believe is their job.”

Jega’s interview is the lead of Metropole’s special issue on the 2015 general election, due out later this month.

Read more at Metropole.ng