The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) urged the public to register their Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards to prevent deactivation upon effectivity of the new law.
During a press briefing in Cagayan de Oro City recently, NTC-10 Director Teodoro Buenavista Jr. said users have a six-month grace period to register the cards they use on their mobile devices as prescribed under the Republic Act 11934 or the SIM Registration Act that is expected to take effect on Dec. 27.
“As one of the agencies tasked to implement its rules and guidelines, the registration will be done online. There was a mall here that has shown interest in providing us some space for the registration rollout,” he said.
Buenavista said users must provide valid identification cards as a requirement.
SIM cards are chips inserted into mobile devices to access services and signals for calls, short messaging, and internet data.
The services are provided either by Public Telecommunications Entities (PTEs) or commercial telecommunications companies.
Buenavista said under the law, both pre-paid and post-paid SIM cards are required to be registered.
Out of the 158.6 million active SIM cards in the Philippines, Buenavista said around 82 percent are prepaid.
“The passage of this law was mainly to prevent the proliferation of scams and spam messages. Our survey suggests six out of 10 Filipinos are in favor of SIM registration law,” he explained.
Failure or refusal to register may be penalized for a minimum of P100,000 for the first offense, to PHP1 million maximum for the third and subsequent offense.
The law also has a safeguard provision for PTEs to uphold data privacy.
For breach of confidentiality, PTEs and their agents may be penalized for a minimum of P500,000 to a maximum of P4 million.
Providing false information, “spoofing” a registered SIM, selling stolen SIM, and transferring SIM cards without complying with the registration process can also be subjected to penalties. PNA