Fresh Sim Card Registration Requirements as CAK Trashes Photo Requirement; See Why

Kenyans who have not registered their lines can now breath especially the photo phobic ones after the photo requirement was done away with. See the full details below:

Communication Authority of Kenya Director General Ezra Chiloba has noted that the ongoing sim card registration will not entail the requirement of a photo.

This coming days after activists have since moved to court to halt the fresh registration of exercise of SIM cards seeking court orders compelling network service providers to delete and expunge from their records and systems photographs of persons collected during the registration process.

”The major complaint we have had is the requirement of photo. The 2015 regulations don’t anticipate we shall take your photo,”said Chiloba.

Eliud Karanja Matindi filed a case that seeks to quash a directive by the Communication Authority of Kenya (CA) saying the directive by the institution is unconstitutional in as far collection andretention of photographs is concerned.

This is even as he defended the move to switch off Simcard of mobile phone subscribers who fail to register their details with their respective telecommunication service providers by April 15 will face disconnection.

Chiloba noted the regulations are not new as they were enacted in 2015 insisting that the process of network service providers to update their records commenced two years ago.

“The requirement of SIM card registration is not a new one. The regulations at issue now are the 2015 regulations which provide how subscribers are supposed to register,” stated Chiloba during the Kuza meeting launch.

“The concerns raised by people on the process are legitimate, but we must be honest whether we understand what is at stake. Ensure that by 15th April 2022 your SIM card is duly registered,”he added.

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Chiloba decried that the uptake of simcard registration across the country is still low. He stated that he has since directed mobile operators to hastily facilitate subscribers with a means of verifying whether they are duly registered or not.

“Looking at the situation across the currently, the compliance levels on SIM card registration are not looking good. How do we know that you are duly registered? By dialing *106# you can know which numbers are registered in your name,”he stated.

With 65 million SIM cards active in the country,Chiloba noted it was essential to ensure that every subscriber is duly registered to weed out criminals and ensure data accuracy.

“We must ensure each subscriber is duly registered. We have about 65 million SIM cards active in Kenya. It means each and every person born in Kenya has a number attached to them. But we know the fact is most people have more than one SIM card,”Chiloba noted.

Chiloba said the Communication Authority will not extend the ongoing SIM card registration deadline and urged unregistered mobile subscribers to do so in the remaining days.

He asked all mobile network operators to speed up the data cleanup exercise and said that no more time will be added upon the expiry of the grace period noting that unregistered sim cards have security implications.

“There would be no extension so those still dragging their feet should wake up to the reality and register with their respective telecom service providers or face permanent deactivation,” he said.

The CA DG said there would be no unregistered SIM cards on any of the telcom service providers that would be in operation beyond April 15.

“We want before the end of April all the networks to be cleaned up by deactivating all unregistered and improperly registered SIM cards from the networks,” said Chiloba.

He said Kenya will join other countries in the world that have developed similar policies and collected biometric data through a registration process by telecom companies in a bid to boost cybersecurity.