Benefits outweigh perceived costs

If things go well, a bill that requires all prepaid SIMs or subscriber identity modules to be registered with their respective telecommunication companies may become the first legislative measure that will be signed and enacted into law by President Marcos.

Last Wednesday, the House of Representatives ratified the bicameral committee report on the proposed SIM Registration Act, which holds the distinction of being the first bill approved by the bicameral panel of the Senate and the House of Representatives in the present 19th Congress.

According to House Speaker Martin Romualdez, the principal author of House Bill 14, the approval of the measure is timely amid the continuing proliferation of malicious text messages meant to take advantage of unwary cellphone users and could even pose danger to people’s lives and to public order.

He said the measure will not only help promote responsibility among SIM end-users for electronic devices but will also provide law enforcers the necessary tools to resolve crimes involving telecommunication devices.

Romualdez expressed confidence the bill will not suffer the same fate as the SIM Card Registration Act that then president Rodrigo Duterte vetoed in April this year over a provision on social media that may give rise to intrusions and violations of constitutionally protected rights since the controversial provision that orders mandatory registration of social media accounts has already been removed.

Under the bill, all SIMs sold are in a deactivated state and end-users are required to register these SIMs with the concerned public telecommunication entity (PTE) as a prerequisite for activation. Meanwhile, all existing SIM subscribers are required to register with their respective PTEs within 180 days from the effectivity of the law but the Department of Information and Communications Technology is allowed to extend the registration for a period not exceeding 120 days.

Failure to register the SIM within the prescribed period will result in its automatic deactivation and may only be reactivated after it is registered.

SIM owners will be required to submit a duly accomplished control-numbered registration form containing their name, date of birth, sex, and address for registration. The registration process also requires inputting the assigned SIM number with its serial number.

To verify the identity of the end-user, they are required to present valid government-issued IDs or similar documents with pictures. In the case of corporations, they are required to present their certificate of registration, among others.

For foreign nationals, they are required to register their name, nationality, passport number, and address in the Philippines and submit other proof of identity. In the case of tourists, they are also required to present their passport, proof of address in the Philippines, and ticket showing date of departure.

Penalties ranging from fine to imprisonment, meanwhile, will be imposed on violations of the measure, including failure or refusal to register a SIM, breach of confidentiality, using fictitious identities or identification documents, among others.

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Citing a World Bank report, House Bill 14 noted that in 2020, there are 137 mobile cellular subscriptions, including both postpaid and active prepaid accounts, per 100 Filipinos, indicating that there are Filipinos with more than one cellular subscription. This, it said, may be due in part to the affordability and accessibility of prepaid SIM cards in the country which can also easily be purchased for as low as P30 in a sari-sari store or convenience store.

It pointed out that while the affordability and accessibility of SIM cards have resulted in the democratization of mobile communications, having an unregulated SIM card market has also given way to several mobile phone scams ranging from simple text messages asking users to send cellular loads, to more sophisticated voice phishing methods and marketing spams used to gain unauthorized access to sensitive personal information of unsuspecting mobile users.

The same report also revealed that as of January 2020, 155 countries have mandatory SIM registration laws as a condition for the purchase or activation of a prepaid SIM card, with security and fighting crime usually cited as justification.

However, according to GSMA, only 59 percent of countries mandating SIM card registration have a privacy and/or data protection framework in place.

The group warned that by facilitating the creation of an extensive database of user information, mandatory SIM registration places individuals at risk of being tracked or targeted, and having their private information misused.

This risk of data privacy is real.

If the government wants to create a database of its citizens’ personal information, I do not think the SIM Registration Act will be used as a way to accomplish this. We have after all the Philippine Identification System (Philsys) Act which precisely aims to establish a single national identification system. If the government wants to do surveillance activities, there are definitely more ways than one.

Just like the information provided by postpaid mobile service subscribers, information that will be required for prepaid SIM activation is something that PTEs are required to maintain in confidence or they will be facing sanctions.

The benefits of prepaid SIM card registration definitely outweigh the perceived dangers. Next time someone wants to send you a threatening text message using a prepaid number, you will be consoled by the fact that you have a chance of going after the sender, if this card registration proposal becomes a law.

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