The SIM Card Registration Act, which requires mandatory sim card registration among others, is just one step away from becoming a law.

All the conflicting provisions of Senate Bill No. 2395 and House Bill No. 5793 have been ratified by the Senate and House of Representatives in their respective sessions. Now, only President Rodrigo Duterte’s signature is needed for the bill to become a law.

The bill mandates all public telecommunications entities (PTEs) to register SIM cards as a prerequisite to their sale and activation. As for all existing SIM cards with active services, they should register within 80 days upon effectivity of this bill.

According to Senator Grace Poe, the sponsor of the bill, all the data collected from registration shall be forwarded and kept by the concerned PTE to a centralized database, which shall “strictly serve as a register for the processing, activation or deactivation of subscription and shall not be used for any other purpose.”

She further added that “Whatever information obtained in the registration process cannot be disclosed to any person except in compliance with any law authorizing disclosure, such as in the case of the Data Privacy Act; or in compliance with a court order or any other legal process; or with the written consent of the subscriber. No waiver of absolute confidentiality is allowed.”