DICT: No extension of April 26 SIM registration deadline

MANILA, Philippines — The Marcos Jr. administration is not budging on the April 26 deadline for SIM card registration despite calls for an extension from telcos.

In a tweet on Wednesday, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) noted that while they have received extension requests, they are sticking with their decision.

“However, at this point, there is no extension of SIM registration. With the 26 April 2023 registration deadline drawing near, we encourage everyone to register to promote the responsible use of SIMs and provide law enforcement agencies the necessary tools to crack down on perpetrators who use SIMs for their crimes, consistent with the declared policy of the law,” the tweeted statement read.

As it is, the state’s move to register SIM cards was met with widespread opposition from civil society groups. Criticism hurled towards the decision homed on in the point that registering SIM cards in the state’s database were in violation of data protection and privacy laws. 

The national government reassured the public that the data will not be used for wrongdoing, but law enforcement already warned the public of scams targetting prospective registrants. Even then, Singapore, which implemented similar measures years back, remained a hotbed of SIM-related scams.

That said, the latest government data showed 168.01 million subscribers have registered their sim cards into the state’s database. On the other hand, SIM cards registered tallied 74.18 million as of Tuesday. 

As it is, the DICT reiterated that SIMs and eSIMs will be deactivated if those numbers are not registered once the April 26 deadline lapses. — Ramon Royandoyan