Your SIM card may soon be deactivated

Yes, your SIM may soon be deactivated. That is if you fail to register it, which is required under the new law on SIM registration.

Among the salient features of the law are as follows: From the law's effectivity, subscribers are given 180 days to register their SIM cards. The registration may be extended at most 120 days. One's failure to register will result in the automatic deactivation of the SIM.

On December 12, this year, the National Telecommunication Commission released the Implementing Rules and Regulations of the SIM Card Registration Act.

The law is timely, at least for those who favor it, as it came at a time when scams and digital crimes have also gone high-tech. It’s nice to imagine that in this Information Age, many are well-informed and thus more alert to detect fraud. But that seems to be not the case always; ancient gullibility has not left humanity. Those who fall prey are not always the less educated but even the professionals.

We also receive unwelcome and irritating messages or those we did not solicit daily. It is, therefore, vital that we can identify the source or the sender of messages.

This will be a step forward towards a more secure digital transaction.

Starting December 27, 2022, we will register our SIM. We will not wait for the deadline to come because there might be electronic traffic at that time, and our phones might be automatically deactivated. We know, especially for millennials, how big a deal it is for them if they cannot communicate for even an hour, how much more if it will take days to reconnect.

To register your SIM, you need to submit your name, birthday, gender, address, and government-issued ID. The identification cards that will be accepted include a Driver’s License, Passport, Social Security Service (SSS) ID, Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) ID, Philippine Identification Card, National Bureau of Investigation Clearance, Police Clearance, License to Own and Posses Firearms (LTOPF) ID, Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) ID, Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) ID, Senior Citizens card, Persons with Disabilities Card, Overseas Workers Welfare Administration ID, Bureau of Internal Revenue ID, Voter’s ID and Unified Multi-purpose Identification Card.

The concerns of those who oppose the law cannot be easily dismissed. The data breach is also what worries them. We know it will be terrible if unscrupulous individuals could access our data.

This may lead to financial loss, among others. Opposition posits that registering SIM cards will not ensure what it seeks to address, such as curbing the proliferation of scams. A central database for subscribers’ information will make hackers salivate about how much they can benefit from it.

However, since SIM registration is already a law, all we have to do is deal with it, which means that we have to dutifully comply with it and observe if this will not worsen our already-sensitive electronic transactions. After all, if it eventually works toward the benefit of the public, all criticisms will die down. On the other hand, if critics prove to be correct, we can all work toward repealing the law. That is simply how democracy works.

Among the many questions confronting the citizen is how much freedom he may give up in favor of the national interest. Nobody says that striking a balance is a walk in the park.