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The Nigerian Communications Commission has mandated telecommunications companies to deactivate all invalid and improperly registered Subscribers Identification Module cards or face sanctions.
The NCC’s ultimatum, which was originally seven days, will end on Tuesday (today).
The commission also authorised the telecoms companies to deactivate SIM cards without properly captured facial pictures and/or fingerprints.
Its directive was issued after an earlier meeting with the Office of the National Security Adviser, the Department of Security Service, and the telcos.
The NCC has , however, instructed operators to notify such subscribers before deactivation of their SIM cards.
The PUNCH learnt that the meeting took cognisance of crimes committed against members of the public either by kidnappers, terrorists, armed robbers and threats to lives, through the use of such unregistered SIM cards across all the networks.
The NCC’s Director, Public Affairs, Mr. Tony Ojobo, who attended, said, “Henceforth, all registrations must conform to the data dictionary, technical specifications on fingerprints and facial images and the business rule agreed on by all stakeholders.”
He also said, “All registration records must be validated before sending to the commission; thus eliminating all invalid records that do not conform to new registrations and indicate same in the monthly reports sent to commission.”
Also at the meeting were representatives of the NSA, Group Captain Ibikunle Daramola; DSS, Mr. Godwin Ometu; the immediate past NCC executive vice chairman, Dr. Eugene Juwah; the Executive Commissioner, Technical Services, Ubale Maska and representatives of MTN, Globacom, Etisalat, Visafone, Airtel and others.
It was gathered that the meeting resolved that operators would be held liable for cases of pre-registered SIMs, as grace of 21 days given by the commission had lapsed.
Accordingly, the NCC said it had commenced monitoring as from Monday, August 3, 2015.
It stated that sanctions for default would apply in accordance with the SIM registration regulations.
On multiple registrations, Ojobo said, “The regulation did not set a cap for the number of SIMs to be registered by individual or corporate subscribers.
“However, operators must ensure all registrations are valid and in accordance with the documents and specifications stated in 1 (a).”
The NCC director said that unusually high number of registration by an individual should be flagged and reported to the commission.
“The commission and all operators are to embark on vigorous public enlightenment on the need and desirability for subscribers to register their SIMs, as well as the dangers of selling/buying pre-registered SIMs,” he added.
Earlier, it was observed that to date, more than 120 million SIM cards had been registered and transmitted to the central database by the operators.
According to the NCC, the validation exercise reveals a preponderance of unreliable data in terms of incomplete and/or inaccurate demographic and /or biometric data.
“The issues relating to unreliability of data essentially borders on the operators’ failure to ensure compliance with the formats and specifications that were jointly developed and agreed on by the NCC and the operators before the commencement of the exercise in 2011.
“As of September 2014, about 45 per cent of the total number of registered SIMs, at that time, were deemed invalid for reasons of a invalid portrait image only, invalid fingerprints only, invalid portrait image and fingerprints, and incorrect/ inaccurate demographic data (name, address, etc),” the NCC said in a statement.
It added, “Since the invalid records were returned to the operators in September 2014 for correction, less than 30 per cent of the invalid records have been resubmitted.”
“These resolutions were part of the ongoing efforts by government to nip in the bud the incessant occurrences of threats through telecommunications networks and the danger they portend for psyche of the citizenry.”
source; punch newspaper
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