After a lengthy process, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has finally signed the SIM Card Registration Act into law.
To summarize, the goal of this act is to crack down and possibly eliminate dubious activities being conducted by text scammers and phishing specialists as of late. These have caused massive losses and private telcos have been doing their best to act upon these, but there is only so much they can do.
The SIM Card Registration Act mandates all SIM cards to be sold as deactivated devices. Activation requires in-person appearances which verify the owner of the SIM card, holding them accountable for illegal activities conducted via that number. Existing SIM card users, which is probably everyone who uses a mobile device, have 180 days to register with the necessary bodies.
As for retailers, they will be properly trained on how to conduct these identity verification processes in order to standardize these across the country.
According to Senator Grace Poe, the SIM Card Registration Act will prevent crimes from being committed through the use of SIM cards since its owners will have to register for identification.
“We now have in our hands the means to unmask criminals who have been hiding for so long under the protection of anonymity and to bring them to justice,” Poe said.
