The Executive Secretary of the National Identification Authority (NIA), Yayra Koku, has announced that photocopying or visually inspecting a Ghana Card for the purpose of conducting transactions is now an offence.
The development follows the amendments to the Legislative Instrument (L.I.) 2111 governing the National Identification System.
The amendment was introduced in Parliament three months ago, has now matured and been gazetted, making its provisions legally enforceable.
Under the gazetted amendment to L.I. 2111, biometric verification is mandatory for all identity checks.
Organisations that violate this directive face heavy fines ranging from 500 to 2,000 penalty units (potentially up to GH¢24,000)
According to Yayra Koku, organisations that fail to comply with the new requirement commit an offence.
He highlighted that upon summary conviction, persons who photocopy the Ghana Card face fines ranging from 500 to 2,000 penalty units.
The NIA boss detailed that biometric verification is now mandatory for transactions requiring Ghana Card authentication.
Yayra Koku in a post on X on July 15, 2026, wrote, “It is now an offence to photocopy or visually inspect a Ghana Card for the purpose of a transaction. Biometric verification is now MANDATORY.
An organisation that contravenes this order commits an offence and faces a fine of at least 500 penalty units and up to 2,000 units on summary conviction.
Individual penalty units range from 50 to 500.
This follows the maturity of the LI 2111 amendment, which was introduced in Parliament three months ago and gazetted today.
The Honourable Minister in charge of the National Identification Authority will address the public in the coming days about the steps being taken to enforce this amendment.
In the meantime, you can apply to be onboarded onto the NIA Identity Verification Platform by sending an email to idverification@nia.gov.gh”.
Some Ghanaians reacting to the development stated, “So, to clarify for all this simply means that organisations or firms requiring Ghana Card for verification purposes will need to buy or pay for the National Ghana Card database access of some sort, and when a customer walks in, they put your thumb to verify your details”.
A netizen added, “It won’t work if they have to pay to access these biometric verification capabilities.
If they do, then don’t say nobody told you it won’t work. If it works, which I doubt it would, I would have learned something very valuable about my ability to predict tech adoption in Ghana”.
One X user added, “Send this to radio stations and TV stations for public announcement for at least one week. When laws are made, the public needs to know about it”.
“Boss, you do all, but please let your people visit the VIP station at Circle. They said they are not part of the laws. If you have items to pick and you don’t give them the physical ID they will never give your items to you… I am a victim and ready to testify..”, a netizen added.
“For clarity’s sake, you mean no one should carry their Ghana cards anywhere? Why don’t you issue digital IDs only then. So at what point do we need to present our Ghana Cards? And also the charges for all these verifications are ridiculous! Per hit should not cost more than 0.1 cedi”, one X user added.
See the post below:
It is now an offence to photocopy or visually inspect a Ghana Card for the purpose of transaction. Biometric verification is now MANDATORY.
— Yayra Koku (@YayraKoku) July 15, 2026
An organization that contravenes this order commits an offence and faces a fine of at least 500 penalty units and up to 2,000 units on… pic.twitter.com/omvvmLrUXO
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