Manila Bulletin
Philippines
National
DICT anticipates achieving 100M SIM registrants during 90-day extension
Philippines
National
DICT anticipates achieving 100M SIM registrants during 90-day extension
DICT anticipates achieving 100M SIM registrants during 90-day extension
Published Apr 25, 2023 08:04 am
The mandatory SIM card registration, which was supposed to end on April 26, has been extended for 90 more days, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) confirmed on Tuesday, April 25.
Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards (Courtesy of Pixabay)
DICT Secretary Ivan John Uy on Tuesday afternoon urged Filipinos to take advantage of this grant. Given this extension, the mandatory listing will now end on July 25, 2023. “We believe that [the 90-day extension] will already give a lot of time to the public in order to fulfill the requirements of the law,” said Uy in a public briefing. The DICT official then disclosed that there was a surge in registration in the last two weeks, averaging to more than a million registrations per day. This, according to Uy, proves that the problem of low registration turnout is not really limited to unavailability of identification cards and lack of access to the internet, but it is mostly because of “bad habits” of delaying compliance to the last minute. To ramp up the registration processes, the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), along with other government agencies, will continue mounting facilitated SIM registration sites, especially in geographically disadvantaged areas. “This is our last chance. We are only allowed to do this extension once. Those who do not register will lose all services — their number, access to texts, calls, as well as e-wallets that are linked to their SIM cards,” Uy furthered. The DICT said they are aiming to register at least 100 million active SIMs across the archipelago. Latest data from the NTC showed that 87,442,982 cards have been registered as of April 24. This is equivalent to about 52.04 percent of existing cards in the Philippines. Signed into law in October 2022, the Republic Act No. 11934, also called the SIM Registration Act, seeks to eradicate electronic communication-aided crimes such as but not limited to text scams and phishing.
Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards (Courtesy of Pixabay)
DICT Secretary Ivan John Uy on Tuesday afternoon urged Filipinos to take advantage of this grant. Given this extension, the mandatory listing will now end on July 25, 2023. “We believe that [the 90-day extension] will already give a lot of time to the public in order to fulfill the requirements of the law,” said Uy in a public briefing. The DICT official then disclosed that there was a surge in registration in the last two weeks, averaging to more than a million registrations per day. This, according to Uy, proves that the problem of low registration turnout is not really limited to unavailability of identification cards and lack of access to the internet, but it is mostly because of “bad habits” of delaying compliance to the last minute. To ramp up the registration processes, the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), along with other government agencies, will continue mounting facilitated SIM registration sites, especially in geographically disadvantaged areas. “This is our last chance. We are only allowed to do this extension once. Those who do not register will lose all services — their number, access to texts, calls, as well as e-wallets that are linked to their SIM cards,” Uy furthered. The DICT said they are aiming to register at least 100 million active SIMs across the archipelago. Latest data from the NTC showed that 87,442,982 cards have been registered as of April 24. This is equivalent to about 52.04 percent of existing cards in the Philippines. Signed into law in October 2022, the Republic Act No. 11934, also called the SIM Registration Act, seeks to eradicate electronic communication-aided crimes such as but not limited to text scams and phishing.