Cyberfraud: Lagos urges residents to protect digital identity

 

The Lagos State Security Trust Fund has urged residents of the state and Nigeria at large to protect their digital identity against theft amid rising cyber fraud.

Speaking during a YouTube session on Saturday, the Lagos State Coordinator of LSSTF Campaign Against Crime, Cultism and Other Vices, Dr Oladimeji Moses, stressed that the training was organised to address the prevalence of cybercrime.

According to him, data from the National Bureau of Statistics indicated a rise in cyber fraud, which has resulted in loss of money to victims.

He said, “The reason why we are here today is because of the prevalence of cybercrime everywhere. From the statistics of the NBS, over 119,000 data breaches were recorded in 2025, and millions were lost to cybercrime, which is becoming a major issue in our community.

She added that too much exposure of an individual’s identity on the social media space puts such an individual at risk of digital identity theft, which may be used to perpetrate crime.

She noted that Personally Identifiable Information, such as bank details, tokens, biometrics and other security information, should not be displayed on social media to avoid becoming victims of identity theft.

Soile concluded by urging the government to adopt technology that would aid the use of digital identity to track criminals and reduce crime.

Also speaking, the LSSTF-CACCOV Head of Programmes and Outreach, Meshole Emmanuel, encouraged participants to safeguard their digital identity by ensuring that they do not expose sensitive information about themselves.

He added that exposing digital identity to cyber criminals could give them access to defraud the victims.

He concluded by urging participants to ensure that they report data breaches and cybersecurity-related threats to the appropriate authorities while taking immediate measures to protect their data.