Telcos urged to reconsider opposition to SIM Card Registration Act

MANILA, Philippines - Senior administration lawmakers on Friday appealed to telecommunications companies to reconsider their opposition to the proposed SIM Card Registration Act, saying the measure is a vital tool to stop crime and terrorism.

Reps. Winston Castelo of Quezon City, Sherwin Gatchalian of Valenzuela City, and Rufus Rodriguez of Cagayan de Oro, authors of House Bill 5231, said telcos should prioritize the safety and security of the public over profits, and reconsider their anti-SIM card registration stance as pre-paid SIM cards are being used by criminal syndicates, terror groups as well as scammers.

The House of Representatives last May approved the proposed “Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) Card Registration Act,” seeking to deter crimes committed through mobile phones, including text scams.

Sen. Vicente Sotto III, who authored the counterpart SIM Card Registration bill in the Senate, voiced a similar view, saying the right to life should take precedence over the right to “telecommunicate.”

“Telcos should put the welfare and security of their consumers as their primordial concern,” Gatchalian said.

He said SIM card registration is a basic measure that will protect the mobile phone subscribers.

Gatchalian said commercialism should take a back seat when the telcos’ services are being used to perpetuate criminality and harassment.

“This (SIM registration) is a small and basic procedure that will keep their consumers safe and secure,” he said.

Gatchalian said mobile phone service providers should not dilly-dally on the anti-crime bill, saying the measure’s real opponents are those who engineer criminal activities and terror plots.

“Who’s afraid of SIM card registration? Definitely those who have plans to violate the laws of the land or those who seek to bring terror and destabilize the status quo. We will all benefit from this security measure, even the telcos whose cell sites are often targeted by rebels,” he said.

Sotto said phones with prepaid SIM cards have been used in negotiating ransom with families of kidnap victims as well as terrorists who use mobile phones in remotely detonating explosives.

He said there were countries where there was no need for a law requiring SIM card registration because the telecommunications companies did this themselves.

A 2013 white paper by the GSM Association, a group of mobile operators, showed that mandatory registration of prepaid SIM card users is already being implemented in parts of Europe, Australia, Africa and Asia.