MANILA, Philippines (Updated 10:17 a.m.) — Globe Telecom Inc. announced Wednesday that their SIM registration microsite is finally back up after being taken down for around a full day following the discovery of "potential minor vulnerabilities."
Globe said in a statement Tuesday night that these unspecified vulnerabilities "require careful patching in order to prevent any serious threat to customer data."
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It added, “These issues prompted Globe to take proactive measures to make the site temporarily inaccessible as customer data security is paramount and any problem detected is treated with utmost severity."
Previously, Globe said it took the SIM registration site offline to add a verification step where users upload selfies with government-issued IDs. The company also moved to fix an issue where users receive a “null” response after registering.
The telco, which serves 87.9 million users, said it requested the National Telecommunications Commission a maximum of 72 hours to address the issue.
“Globe takes full responsibility for the actions it has taken and is prepared to accept any regulatory penalty if merited, in order to prioritize the protection of its customers' data,” it said.
It also asked customers for patience and understanding “given this unprecedented and massive IT deployment.”
“We wish to assure our customers that Globe is doing its best to deliver a SIM registration platform that provides a good digital experience for customers, that is also secure and safe,” Globe said.
It said that prior to the site being taken down, “at least 20,000” were able to register their SIMs.
Technical difficulties marred the first day of SIM registration on Tuesday, with many mobile users unable to register on the portals provided by the two biggest telcos, Globe and Smart Communications, as they were either taken down or inaccessible due to heavy traffic.
The Department of Information and Communications Technology forewarned Monday that problems may occur in the first two weeks of SIM registration, which it said will be considered a “test registration” period.
The SIM Registration Act was among the laws identified by President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. as his administration’s priorities. It was swiftly and overwhelmingly approved by Congress, which is dominated by his allies.
The law is meant to curb crime and spam text messages, although ICT rights advocates have cast doubt whether it will actually work given the failure of similar measures in other countries.
A similar proposal was rejected by Marcos’ predecessor, former President Rodrigo Duterte, over concerns that the bill — which then contained a provision for the registration of social media accounts — will “give rise to a situation of dangerous state intrusion and surveillance.”
Editor's note: This story has been updated to indicate that Globe's SIM registration website is now up after the outage.