SIM Registration Will Help Us Arrest Cyber Criminals — Paul Amaning
Paul Amaning, the Eastern Regional New Patriotic Party (NPP) Chairman hopeful, has said that the sim card registration with the Ghana card will help fight crimes including terrorism.
Speaking on Accra-based FM he explained the need for the sim card re-registration with the Ghana card.
According to him, the registration will not only curb Mobile money fraud but will curb all associated crimes.
Paul Amaning, added that it will help the securities foil crimes and provide them with the right and timely data to track and arrest cybercriminals in the country.
He continued, “The re-registration process will help the law enforcement agencies to identify the SIM card owners, track criminals who use phones for illegal activities, curb incidents such as phone theft, hate text messages, mobile fraud activities, inciting violence, and to combat crime such as SIM Box fraud.”
Paul Amaning mentioned that SIM registration will enable subscribers to be properly identified for the use of value-added services such as mobile banking, mobile money, and electronic payment services.
Background
Ghana enacted the Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) Registration Regulations, 2011 (L.I. 2006) primarily to reduce mobile phone related crimes such as prank calls, cyber-crime, mobile money fraud and its related issues and general security. Due to crucial nature of SIM registration and its security implications for the country, MNOs have been required to ensure SIMs are registered properly before activation on the mobile network to avoid inconsistencies and fake subscriber identity.
It is emerging that since there is no solution in place to integrate all the databases of Card Issuing Agencies for the seamless verification of IDs used for registration of SIMs to be effectively conducted.
The Ministry of Communications has noted other deficiencies of the existing SIM card registration regime in Ghana including the sale of pre-registered SIM cards, the use of pre-registered SIM cards and fraudulent registration of SIM cards.