Globe, the leading mobile provider, has announced that the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) has released new guidelines to improve ID verification when registering SIM cards.
The telecom company thinks it’s important for everyone involved in the industry, like regulators and law enforcement, to work together for the SIM Registration Act to work well. They care a lot about protecting their customers.
During a Senate hearing, concerns were raised about the reliability of the verification process in SIM registration. This was prompted by a discussion about whether an animal photo could be used as a substitute for a person’s actual identification.
Even though Globe followed all the rules of the SIM Registration Act and registered 54 million SIM cards, there are still ways to make things better and help stop online fraud and scams.
The first thing is to have a good way to identify all citizens, like a national ID. This is important to stop people from using fake or tampered government IDs. This is an important area that needs to be actively pursued. We want the government to talk to us about making the National ID and law enforcement better.
Also, the current recommendations from the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) that focus on verifying the identity of SIM card owners are a good move. Globe will follow the rules, but they need more money to upgrade their identification system. It will take time to explore different technical options to find one that meets the specific and challenging requirements of the SIM Registration law.
Third, implementing the SIM Registration Act is just the beginning of stopping online fraud and scams. To eliminate scams in the Philippines, we need strong law enforcement and intelligence capable of tackling tech-related criminal activities. Another issue is when people sell their registered SIM cards to others.
Last year, when SIM registration started, telcos had only 15 days to create their SIM registration platform after the IRR was released. We can’t fully check IDs because we don’t have access to a database to verify them. According to Atty. Froilan Castelo, General Counsel of the Globe Group, in order for facial or optical character recognition to work well, there needs to be a database of facial biometrics and IDs that only government issuers have.
We’re currently improving our SIM registration system with the government’s help. Our goal is to obtain data that can be used to verify document submissions, such as photo IDs.
“In the future, we believe that with the new guidelines from the NTC, we can identify and remove people who used fake credentials to register. We will then deactivate their SIM cards and report them to the authorities for investigation,” said Castelo.
Globe is asking SIM users to provide only verified information and IDs when registering their SIMs. If fraudulent submissions are made, they will be penalized according to the SIM Registration Act. People who give wrong information or use fake IDs can go to jail for 6 months to 2 years and have to pay a fine of P300,000.
To learn more about SIM registration, visit their website by clicking here.