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RA day before Holy Innocents Day – which marks the execution of the innocent, male children in Bethlehem – this month, the Implementing Rules and Regulations of the SIM Card Registration Law will start rolling.

Under the government-crafted IRR, telco subscribers who will not comply with the rules will have their SIM cards deactivated.

But a good light is they are given 180 days from the effectivity of the law to register their SIM cards.

Far more severe is that those who will falsify information or fake their identities to register subscriber identity module shall be penalized with up to two years jail and fine of as much as P300,000 under the IRR.

A SIM is the Subscriber Identity/ Identification Module, a removable card inside a cell phone that stores data unique to the user, as an identification number, passwords, phone numbers, and messages.

The National Telecommunications Commission said those who would sell or transfer a registered SIM card withoutcomplying with the procedure could end up behind bars for six years and fined P300,000, the penalty applicable as well to sellers of stolen SIM cards.

Telco providers who fail or refuse to register SIM card shall be slapped with up to P300,000 on first offense, P500,000 on second offense, and P1 million on third and subsequent offenses.

They will also be liable if their agents engage in the sale of stolen SIM cards.

To minimize the frequency of scams, the NTC also imposed six years jail and P200,000 in sanction for anyone who would spread inaccurate information about the source of a call or message.

These acts can only be committed when authorized by law enforcement authorities or in compliance with a court order.

Foreign nationals who will register their SIM cards are required to present their passport and address in the Philippines.

On the other hand, business establishments are required to provide their business name,. address and the full name of the authorized signatory.

Wireless broadband modems, machine-to-machine communications and IoT or Internet of Things devices should also be registered.

A SIM card used to send fraudulent texts or calls will be deactivated “upon due investigation.”

Telco players who will disclose any data or any information gathered from a user obtained during the registration will be penalized with as much as P4 million for breach of confidentiality.

According to the IRR, all covered SIMs, including embedded SIMs, other variations or technologies and other future technologies thereof, which are provisioned by any public telecommunications entity to provide short messaging services or the socalled SMS, voice or data services are subject for registration.

A SIM card used to send fraudulent texts or calls will be deactivated ‘upon due investigation’