SIM card registration pushed

Valenzuela City Rep. Wes Gatchalian has asked the House of Representatives to approve a bill mandating the registration of SIM cards in the wake of anonymous bomb threats received by schools and establishments in Metro Manila.

Gatchalian asked House Committee on Information and Communications Technology chair Rep. Victor A. Yap to deliberate on proposals to regulate the issuance of SIM cards in response to increasing number of bomb threats via anonymous text messages, which followed the Sept. 2 Davao City bombing.

Gatchalian said House Bill 2648, which he filed, seeks accountability. “With progress in technology, we have made leaps and bounds in our ability to communicate, so much so that it has outpaced the laws,” said Gatchalian.

He said a gap in government regulations becomes an avenue to abuses. House Bill 2648 cites “scams” and various acts of terror as examples of how the unregulated sale of prepaid SIM cards have been used to perpetuate criminal activities, aided by the near absolute anonymity of a prepaid SIM.

The bill fills in this gap by requiring telecom providers to maintain a registry of all users, including prepaid subscribers, said Gatchalian.

If passed into law, an original purchaser of prepaid SIM would be required to present valid identification for registration before he could purchase, he said.

Gatchalian said that currently, landline phone users and postpaid subscribers already go through some form of registration. In Singapore, as in other countries, the trend is to require the registration of SIMs. The effect is that the users are made to become more responsible.

“There is no cogent reason why some should not be applied to prepaid users in our country,” Gatchalian said.

A similar bill was met with oppositions who claimed that it would be an infringement to the constitutional right to privacy of communication.