Hundreds of people have lined up in queues for the past three days at the various telecom service centres that were furnished with smart card readers in a bid to have their SIM cards finally replaced easily. New SIM cards will be issued starting next week.
UCC had earlier issued tough conditions on how a new sim card would be acquired. The said guidelines received massive criticism within Uganda mobile phone users fraternity. UCC insisted that the directive to ban SIM card issuance was intended to safeguard phone users although several mobile phone users complained about the laid out cumbersome process.
The process involved production of a police letter, payment of UGX 1,000 to NIRA in the bank (with up to UGX 2,500 as bank charges), a verification letter from National Identification Registration Authority validating that the sim card holder has an authentic national ID card, passport photographs among others. It was a complete menace and obviously a poorly thought about process. Now with the smart card readers in the hands of the telecom companies, SIM card replacement is going on at different centers across the country.
Telecom companies will next week resume issuing new SIM cards after the exercise was halted by the regulator a month back in a bid to pave way for new controls aimed at improving verification of phone subscribers to curb the rising crimes commited using unregistered SIM cards.
Cabinet during its sitting on Monday endorsed a new plan that will require subscribers to visit yet to be designated verification centers to acquire or replace SIM cards. The deputy director of Uganda Media Centre, Shaban Bantariza, said that the instant verification of phone subscribers would be conducted by inter-agency team at 50 verification centers across the country. He added that more centers would be set up if they realise a need for them.
How the new system works.
In the new system of acquiring SIM cards, ones bio data would be captured and matched against the security features in the bar code of one’s national ID when pointed at the smart card reader. The operator at the registration centre will then take the thumbprint of the individual seeking a new SIM card using a scanner on the device and match it against the one on the national ID.
If the two match, a green light will appear on the device, confirming that the person seeking to acquire a SIM card is the bona fide bearer of the presented national ID. The new system comes as a patch to the previous loop holes where criminals used fake details to conceal their true identity and acquire SIM cards to use in crimes.
“Those sim card readers will not be reading every detail on your ID. They will be only for synchronization of identity. When you come to the registration center and say I want a sim card – of course they give you a form, you fill it up and you present your national ID. The question is, is that identity card yours or not yours and does NIRA agree or recognize that thats you and thats your authentic identity card. That is what the sim reader will do and will only be limited to that,” said Bantariza.
The battle against crime raves.
UCC has also banned the hawking and roadside sale of mobile phones and and instructed all mobile phone sales outlets to obtain approval from the commission to guarantee that they are genuine. UCC has waged a fresh war that will see 9 million counterfeit phones disconnected. These counterfeits have no authentic IMEI and cannot be easily traced by law enforcement agencies. UCC also encourages users to buy only type Approved phones and check for authenticity of the IMEI before they buy a device.
