MANILA, Philippines — The government is looking at pushing back the deadline for SIM registration, with just a quarter of SIMs nationwide registered so far.
This was announced by the Department of Information and Communications Technology on Thursday, saying only 25% of the 169 million SIMs nationwide are registered as the April 26 deadline nears.
Last year, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. signed into law an act requiring SIM Card users to register their information with telecommunications companies, making it available upon request of a court or other law enforcement agencies.
The mandatory SIM card registration is the first legislative measure passed by the 19th Congress.
Then-President Rodrigo Duterte vetoed a similar measure in April due to privacy concerns, but recent flooding of scam text messages to users all over the country has renewed support for the measure despite doubts from ICT rights advocates on whether it will work. — with a report from The STAR/Elijah Felice Rosales