SENATORS yesterday said the poor implementation of the rules and regulations of the SIM Registration Act is the reason why text scams still exist.
In an interview with dzBB, Sen. Grace Poe said the law’s IRR needs more fine-tuning so the registered SIMs cannot be used in scamming schemes.
She said telecommunications companies should include “live selfies” of SIM card owners as part of measures to ensure the identity of the registrants.
“It looks like a lot of SIM holders were able to register using different pictures as we can see after a monkey’s photo was used in a valid ID for registration. And then these criminal syndicates can go on with their illegal activities by registering fake accounts or buying fake SIM cards,” said Poe, who chairs the Senate Public Services Committee.
She said the National Telecommunications Commission met with telcos to iron out the kinks in the IRR of the SIM Registration Act.
She said the outcome of the meeting should be known today, Monday.
Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian said telcos should validate IDs uploaded during the registration process to determine their authenticity.
“They (telcos) are not validating or do not have a validation process and telcos do not do anything to find out if the registrant is a person or not. So, that means that the law’s purpose is good but there are flaws in its implementation,” Gatchalian told dzBB in a separate interview.
