Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has announced that no SIM will be sold or activated throughout Pakistan without biometric verification of customers starting August 1st, 2014.
As per this
new policy, customers will have to verify their identity through thumb
impression to confirm that the CNIC they are using for activation of SIM is
legitimate, original and it belongs to them.
As per PTA’s
SOP, a customer has to present his/her CNIC to sales’ representative of
cellular companies before making a purchase of SIM. After which customer will
have to record the thumb impression that will be matched – in real time – with
NADRA’s database.
After
successful match of thumb impression with NADRA’s record, the customer will be
issued a new activated SIM.
PTA said
that SIM activations through 789 will discontinue and SIMs will only be
registered through biometric verification.
How to Get New SIM After August 1st
For those
who are still wondering, here is how you will be able to buy new SIMs after
August 1st, 2014:
Customer
will have to show his/her CNIC.
The Customer
Service Representative/Franchise Representative/Retailer will check the CNIC
for SIMs already issued. If 5 SIMs have already been issued on the respective
CNIC, no further action can be taken.
CNIC with
more than 5 registered SIMs (of any operator) can not purchase more SIMs.
Customer can
check the registered SIMs against his/her CNIC by sending 13 digit CNIC number
to 668. This will return the operator wise connection count for the submitted
CNIC.
In the case
that 5 SIMs have not been issued on the respective CNIC, the details are
entered into the system and customer will be asked to put thumb on the
biometric machine.
Customer’s
thumb print (and/or Index Finger and Thumb of both Left and Right hand) will
then be verified by the system, through NADRA.
Once
verified, new, pre-activated SIM will be handed over to the customer
It merits
mentioning here that SIM replacement of old connections will also be done
through biometric verification of SIMs.
What Exactly
is Biometric Verification System
Biometric
verification is actually the process making sure that the CNIC you are holding
at the time of SIM purchase is indeed yours. This is done by matching your
thumb impression with NADRA’s database against the CNIC you’d produce at the
time of buying new SIM.
If you
remember, at the time of getting your NADRA CNIC you were asked to record your
thumb impressions. Which means there is a thumb impression stored against your
CNIC, that will be now matched to make sure that the CNIC indeed belongs to
you.
This way, no
one will be able to purchase new SIM on CNIC that is fake or doesn’t belong to
the customer.
Move – that
is likely to hit sales of cellular companies – is aimed at curbing unregistered
and unverified SIMs in the country, that are arguably the main cause of more
than 80 percent of criminal and terrorism related activities in Pakistan.
PTA,
however, didn’t disclose its plan for verifying or re-verifying already active
SIMs. Not to forget, there more than 139 million cellular connections in
Pakistan and it is said that millions of those subscriptions are either unregistered
or they are registered with fake CNICs.
0 comments:
Post a Comment