SWS: 60% of Filipinos OK with SIM card registration law
MANILA, Philippines — Sixty percent of Filipinos approve of the law mandating the registration of SIM cards, a new survey from the Social Weather Stations suggested.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. signed in October a law requiring Filipinos to register their SIM cards, a move that is seen by the government to curb scams and other crimes. Critics of the measure, however, say this could lead to data breaches and privacy violations.
The SWS poll showed that 60% of the 1,500 respondents were in favor of the new measure, while 17% expressed disapproval. Twenty-three percent of the respondents were undecided.
This yielded a net approval score of +44, classified by SWS as good.
The survey was conducted a week before Republic Act 11934 was signed into law.
Net approval of the SIM card registration law was highest in Balance Luzon (+47). It was followed by Mindanao (+45), Metro Manila (+43) and Visayas (+34).
Deter crimes
According to the survey, 66% of the respondents believed that SIM card registration would help fight crimes committed through mobile phones. Ten percent did not believe the measure could deter crimes done through cell phones, while 25% were undecided.
SWS said this yielded a net belief score of +56, which is classified as very strong.
Forty-eight percent of Filipinos said they believe that SIM card sellers can be trusted to protect the private information provided by buyers.
Human rights advocates such as Karapatan said the new law could lead to more breaches to the security and privacy, and legitimize surveillance of people who the government believes are a threat to national security.
Marcos said that any information in the SIM card registration will be treated as confidential “unless access to this information has been granted by the written consent of the subscriber.”
The SWS survey was conducted through face-to-face interviews. The sampling error margins are ±2.5% for national percentages, ±5.7% each for Metro Manila, Visayas, and Mindanao, and ±4.0% for Balance Luzon.
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