SIM registration: Great move
Published Dec 28, 2022 12:05 am
THE VIEW FROM RIZAL
DR. JUN YNARES
As we write this column, the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) would have started the mandatory registration of all Subscriber Identity Modules or more commonly known as SIM cards.
The start of the mandatory registration takes place after President Bongbong Marcos approved the Implementing Rules and Regulations of Republic Act 11934 which he signed into law last October. This is, so far, the most decisive action the national government has taken to address the widespread menace of “smishing” – a variation of a similar evil called “phishing.”
In “smishing,” certain shadowy characters send out text messages purporting to be coming from respectable companies such as banks or online shopping entities. The text messages – which often include the name of the recipient of the fraudulent message – induce people to reveal valuable and sensitive personal information, including credit card numbers, one-time PIN (OTP), and passwords.
The collective anger against this form of fraud has been growing.
The national government has acted decisively. Not only has it mandated the compulsory registration of SIM cards, but it has also imposed stiff penalties on parties who will use the SMS platform to send out fraudulent messages while hiding behind fictitious identities.
There were concerns expressed over the potential risks that compulsory registration may pose to the privacy and private data of the registrants. At the end of the day, the benefits of RA 11934 outweigh the risks. We laud the national government for taking the decisive move.
The law has protected the Filipino’s nearly three-decades-old love affair with “texting.”
It was in 1992 when the government aggressively and decisively adopted the policies of deregulation and liberalization.
Thanks to those policies, by 1994, Filipinos started their love affair with the phenomenon called “texting.” Since then, that gadget called the cellphone and the Filipino became inseparable. In a matter of time, we became the texting capital of the world.
Rapid changes in the ways we interacted and did business took place. “Texting” solved many of our problems. It also created new ones. In the mid-1990s, one of the biggest problems brought about by “texting” was this: husbands got caught by their wives sending messages to so-called “third parties" and engaging in moments of grave indiscretion.
Even in its early stages, “texting” may have already created issues related to “trust.”
We are inclined to think that those times — when husbands got caught by their wives texting a third party – were what led to the development of one the most ingenious inventions of all time: “passwords.”
And today, we find ourselves with more problems to solve.
The issue remains the same – “trust.”
More than ever, there are characters lurking in the dark corners of the cyberworld who – for various reasons – seem determined to exploit the “trust” that the public has given to new, modern, and emerging technologies.
At a recent conference organized by the National Privacy Commission, an official of the Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT) bared that the problem of “smishing” is not exclusive to the Philippines. It is a global plague. The DICT official said that in the United States, a “trusting” segment of the American public has been scammed – or “spammed” – to the tune of 10 billion dollars in the aftermath of the onslaught of more than 87 billion fraudulent text messages. That was in 2021 alone.
That is nearly three times the net profit of Amazon.com for that same year. That would make it appear that parties involved in text fraud are doing better business than Jeff Bezos.
The DICT said it has yet to quantify in pesos and centavos the total amount of money taken away from our countrymen who trusted the text messages they received. The amount would definitely be in the millions of dollars, according to the estimate of the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center.
Recently, one of the biggest telecom service providers in our country reported that they were able to stop some 342 million smishing messages in the past three months alone. Imagine how huge the total number would be; how many of our countrymen were misled and actually responded to them; and how much money they would have lost to these shadowy characters.
Since “fraud” appears to be “good business,” we must brace for determined efforts on the part of its perpetrators to keep it growing.
They will do so at the expense of “trust.”
With the IRR for Republic Act 11934 already in place, we believe that this “trust” is now better protected.
(For feedback, please email it to [email protected] or send it to Block 6 Lot 10 Sta. Barbara 1 cor. Bradley St., Mission Hills Subd., Brgy. San Roque, Antipolo City, Rizal.)
DR. JUN YNARES
As we write this column, the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) would have started the mandatory registration of all Subscriber Identity Modules or more commonly known as SIM cards.
The start of the mandatory registration takes place after President Bongbong Marcos approved the Implementing Rules and Regulations of Republic Act 11934 which he signed into law last October. This is, so far, the most decisive action the national government has taken to address the widespread menace of “smishing” – a variation of a similar evil called “phishing.”
In “smishing,” certain shadowy characters send out text messages purporting to be coming from respectable companies such as banks or online shopping entities. The text messages – which often include the name of the recipient of the fraudulent message – induce people to reveal valuable and sensitive personal information, including credit card numbers, one-time PIN (OTP), and passwords.
The collective anger against this form of fraud has been growing.
The national government has acted decisively. Not only has it mandated the compulsory registration of SIM cards, but it has also imposed stiff penalties on parties who will use the SMS platform to send out fraudulent messages while hiding behind fictitious identities.
There were concerns expressed over the potential risks that compulsory registration may pose to the privacy and private data of the registrants. At the end of the day, the benefits of RA 11934 outweigh the risks. We laud the national government for taking the decisive move.
The law has protected the Filipino’s nearly three-decades-old love affair with “texting.”
It was in 1992 when the government aggressively and decisively adopted the policies of deregulation and liberalization.
Thanks to those policies, by 1994, Filipinos started their love affair with the phenomenon called “texting.” Since then, that gadget called the cellphone and the Filipino became inseparable. In a matter of time, we became the texting capital of the world.
Rapid changes in the ways we interacted and did business took place. “Texting” solved many of our problems. It also created new ones. In the mid-1990s, one of the biggest problems brought about by “texting” was this: husbands got caught by their wives sending messages to so-called “third parties" and engaging in moments of grave indiscretion.
Even in its early stages, “texting” may have already created issues related to “trust.”
We are inclined to think that those times — when husbands got caught by their wives texting a third party – were what led to the development of one the most ingenious inventions of all time: “passwords.”
And today, we find ourselves with more problems to solve.
The issue remains the same – “trust.”
More than ever, there are characters lurking in the dark corners of the cyberworld who – for various reasons – seem determined to exploit the “trust” that the public has given to new, modern, and emerging technologies.
At a recent conference organized by the National Privacy Commission, an official of the Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT) bared that the problem of “smishing” is not exclusive to the Philippines. It is a global plague. The DICT official said that in the United States, a “trusting” segment of the American public has been scammed – or “spammed” – to the tune of 10 billion dollars in the aftermath of the onslaught of more than 87 billion fraudulent text messages. That was in 2021 alone.
That is nearly three times the net profit of Amazon.com for that same year. That would make it appear that parties involved in text fraud are doing better business than Jeff Bezos.
The DICT said it has yet to quantify in pesos and centavos the total amount of money taken away from our countrymen who trusted the text messages they received. The amount would definitely be in the millions of dollars, according to the estimate of the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center.
Recently, one of the biggest telecom service providers in our country reported that they were able to stop some 342 million smishing messages in the past three months alone. Imagine how huge the total number would be; how many of our countrymen were misled and actually responded to them; and how much money they would have lost to these shadowy characters.
Since “fraud” appears to be “good business,” we must brace for determined efforts on the part of its perpetrators to keep it growing.
They will do so at the expense of “trust.”
With the IRR for Republic Act 11934 already in place, we believe that this “trust” is now better protected.
(For feedback, please email it to [email protected] or send it to Block 6 Lot 10 Sta. Barbara 1 cor. Bradley St., Mission Hills Subd., Brgy. San Roque, Antipolo City, Rizal.)