Crime and illegal SIMs As expected, the Prime Minister’s recent announcement to block all ‘unregistered’ phone SIMs went completely unheeded. As the vague announcement did not clarify when or what SIM would be considered as ‘unregistered’, every one thought it best to ignore the statement till something more specific was agreed upon. Misuse of SIMs is deeply related with crime and militancy. Regrettably the PTA has failed to control and link each SIM with a specific owner. Estimates of illegal SIMs vary between 5 to 20 million. Conducting a short snap survey on 5 persons sitting in one room, we found that three had more SIMS shown by PTA records as compared to what they actually possessed and two had less SIMS than what was reflected in the PTA records. One can safely conclude that there are gross errors in PTA’s records in terms of SIMs and their legitimate owners – despite the fact that this information and control is vital to Pakistan’s fight against crime and militancy. Concerned about their profits, the Telecos drag and delay the blocking of SIMS. As an example, SIM 0333-351-8539 was formally discontinued and Telenor asked to block the SIM and remove it from the owner’s name on 11 March 2013. However even six months later (on 19 Sept 2013), the SIM was still reflected on the owner’s name in PTA records. It was removed only after a second formal complaint was lodged to Telenor. Itself on a slippery wicket, the PTA has not been able to exercise sufficient control over the greedy Telecos and at times it appears that the two operate hand in glove. Can the government get more serious on this issue, revamp the PTA, and make sure it can force the Telecos to block every SIM that cannot be proven to belong to a specific individual. If the government is serious, it would limit only one SIM per person and create a positive linkage between an individual, CNIC, SIM and IMEI.
Posted on: Sat, 21 Sep 2013 18:23:55 +0000