Besides using them to make calls and serve messages, our phone numbers serve another purpose: they are a means of performing customer identity verification. When a Nigerian registers a new phone number, they have to provide certain personal and identity information as part of their verification process. Businesses can use this data in their KYC process to verify that someone is who they claim to be.

Dojah provides a Lookup Phone Number API Endpoint that you can leverage to verify the Nigerians through their phone numbers. In this hands-on guide, you will learn all about the API, how it works, and how to integrate it into your digital products. Let’s dive in.

Also read: How to Integrate Dojah’s BVN Validation API (FAQs Included)

Exploring Dojah’s Lookup Phone Number Endpoint

The Lookup Phone Number API Endpoint—one of the many KYC APIs that Dojah provides—returns the identity details attached to a customer’s phone number. As part of the verification process, you can then compare those details with the information the customer provided during onboarding to confirm a match. 

The API endpoint accepts a GET request that contains the customer’s phone number. There are two types of levels number lookups available in this service: basic and advanced. The basic lookup provides basic information about the data attached to a phone number.

The advanced lookup provides more comprehensive information about the data attached to a phone number. An example is that it returns a customer's image while the basic lookup does not. 

How to Get Started With the Lookup Phone Number API Endpoint

Follow these steps to seamlessly integrate the Lookup Phone Number Validation API.

1. Fill our account opening form
2. Retrieve your public and private authentication keys from your account
3. Create an app on the dashboard, then retrieve the app ID 
4. Start making calls to the API

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you get the NIN attached to a phone number?

No, you cannot, due to user data protection policies limiting the amount of data you can access from a customer.

Can you get the account numbers attached to a phone number?

No, you cannot, due to user data protection policies limiting the amount of data you can access from a customer.

What database is the lookup phone number API endpoint linked to?

The basic lookup runs on a Telco database, while the advanced lookup runs on the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) database.

How long does it take to reflect if a user updates the info attached to their phone number?

The NIMC updates its database faster than Telcos do. This means the advanced endpoint provides more up-to-date data than the lookup endpoint. Overall, the updating process can take up to 2 days.

Dojah: The Onboarding, Verification, and Fraud Prevention Platform You Need

Dojah is Africa’s first complete end-to-end onboarding, compliance, and fraud-check verification platform. We are powering trust in Africa’s major economies via our identity verification tools.

Easily access your users’ Financial data, Biometric data, Government data, Telco data, AML data, and more for seamless verification and onboarding. By using our suite of APIs, businesses can easily verify Nigerian identities with BVNs, NINs, and documents such as National IDs, international passports, driver’s licenses, and more. Besides APIs, we also offer no-code tools, low-codes, widgets, and SDK-based integrations. 

With Dojah, you have all of the options and none of the limitations — create an account to start verifying Nigerian identities today. Contact us if you have any questions or schedule a demo session. Also, explore our website and documentation to learn more about our product offerings.