MANILA, Philippines — Rampant spam and scam texts became the jumpoff point for renewed discussions on the vetoed proposal for mobile users to register their SIMs at a Senate hearing on Thursday that focused on the messages that have been bothering mobile users for months.
The proliferation of spam and scam texts was among the reasons cited by Senate public services chair Sen. Grace Poe as reasons it is important to institute a registration system for SIMs — a proposal panned by ICT experts and rights advocates for potentially violating privacy and for not having worked at all.
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"Scams like this, among other cybersecurity and telecommunications issues in the country, highlight the need to institutionalize a protection mechanism for millions of mobile phone users in the country. That is why we are once again opening the doors for this measure," Poe said.
The SIM card registration bill was vetoed by former President Rodrigo Duterte over concerns that it could encroach on the rights to privacy and free speech, particularly because of its inclusion of registration of social media accounts.
But for Poe, there is no constitutional hurdle "when the state’s interest is in peril."
"I mean, of course, we have freedom of expression, but all freedoms are not absolute, especially when it encroaches on the rights, safety and protection of others," she said.
No one during the hearing expressed objection to the SIM registration bill as all resource persons supported the enactment of the measure, particularly law enforcement who said that their jobs would be made easier by the enactment of the measure.
"You wouldn’t be able to identify the person using the prepaid SIM cards," said Palmer Mallari, head of the Cyber Investigation and Assessment Center at the National Bureau of Investigation.