The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) plans to impose a limit on the number of registered subscriber identity modules (SIM) per user to address the continued prevalence of text scams and spam messages despite the implementation of the SIM Registration law.
After the July 30 deadline for the SIM registration, text scams and spams have continued to proliferate and shifted from the standard text-based schemes to different social media platforms, said Alexander Ramos, DICT undersecretary.
“It’s alarming in a sense that every day we experience it. Our estimate, based on our study since November, for every one hijacked account there are at least 10 successful online financial crimes,” Ramos said in an interview on the sidelines of Cybersphere Philippines 2023.
DICT is working with the telecom firms, National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) and the National Privacy Commission (NPC) to strengthen the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) of the SIM Registration Act, by putting a cap on the number of SIMs that one could register.
“As far as the IRR is concerned, we are looking into not amending but strengthening the IRR, because we don’t need to amend it (law) at this point because the safeguards are there. It’s more on the IRR that we need really to fix. We are working with the telcos, NTC and NPC on this,” Ramos said.
“We would like to limit the number of registered SIM cards, and we would like to further expedite the exchange of data among agencies,” he added.
Asked about the timeline to impose the cap, he said: “We are looking at it within a few months.”
Ramos said it is reasonable to limit the number of registered SIMs to only four to five per user.
“They find 10 is reasonable but for us (DICT), it’s only four to five because that’s the average number of SIMs of the prepaid market,” he said.
The DICT has detected a single mobile user who registered 600 SIMs.
As of July 30, NTC data showed registered SIMs totalled 113.9 million users, which is equivalent to 67.8 percent of the total 168 million subscribers nationwide as of last year.
Meanwhile, the DICT, together with ScamWatch Philippines, the telcos and several government agencies, yesterday launched the National Scam Watch Movement for a multilayered approach to combat cyber scams in the country.
ScamWatch said the SIM Registration law is an excellent first step to combat scams, but it is not a foolproof solution.
Scammers are still finding ways to circumvent the law, such as using stolen identities, registering SIM cards in other people’s names, and abusing the multiple SIM registration policy by asking people to register SIMs for them so they can use them for scams.
