Trouble on the cards
By: Shahzada Irfan Ahmed
Not many people know that an illegally activated mobile phone SIM card made functional without fulfilling the required procedure could be the most dangerous weapon available with a terrorist or a hardened criminal. It helps him commit criminal acts from a safe distance and yet stay untraced.
This problem led the federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik to term such SIMs (Subscriber Identity Modules) a menace and Sharfuddin Memon, consultant to the Home Department of Sindh, to come out with startling facts. Citing the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), he recently announced that, of the 120 million SIM cards in circulation across Pakistan, 67 per cent or 80 million have been issued against bogus documents or no documents at all.
Though always considered a crime, the risks associated with this malpractice were never as high as they have become now. Today, the illegal SIMs are being used by terrorists for detonating explosive devices, communicating with other members of their ring, making threatening calls to people and other such activities.
These SIMs are the best means of communication for extortionists and those involved in kidnappings for ransom. Every time they make a call, they use a different SIM and discard the one used earlier. The only similarity in all these SIMs is that the users are hard to trace. Either they have got these SIMs issued without documentation or against unverified information.
“I remember people would buy a SIM for as high as Rs5,000 to Rs10,000 in the late 1990s due to their limited availability,” says Muhammad Naveed, 41, who has worked as a marketing representative with different companies over the years. He says today the market is saturated, so the dealers and franchises of cell companies do whatever they can to increase their sales. “What would you expect if the companies set up roadside camps selling SIMs with some free balance?”
What Naveed says may well be one reason but recent developments show there is much more than the companies’ desire to issue more and more connections. The involvement of staff of cell phone companies is a major issue which gets little attention and the focus remains on streamlining the SIM activation formula. The PTA keeps revising this process periodically, but it does not tackle the irregularities within the telecom companies.
For example, in a major haul, Sargodha police raided the regional office of a leading cell phone company and recovered around 180,000 pre-activated SIMs. The territory sales officer of the company was arrested, along with accomplices, and it was revealed that they had wrongly got thousands of SIMs activated using NADRA’s (National Database and Registration Authority) data. Interestingly, a few SIMs had also been issued in the name of Sargodha DPO.
It is believed that a large number of these SIMs could have been smuggled to Waziristan and Fata regions where they sell like hot cakes.
Fouad Bajwa, a Lahore-based IT professional and internet rights researcher, says he has always found the PTA making vain attempts to streamline the verification process. “Somehow, there is a soft corner in the PTA for the telecom companies and real enforcement of rules remains a challenge,” he believes.
Bajwa insists the telecom companies also have a social responsibility to keep the citizens of Pakistan safe. If they are participating in practices that endanger the lives of Pakistani citizens, then both the PTA and the CEOs of these companies should be taken to courts by human rights advocates, he says. “Just like the PIA being punished for flying illegal immigrants, the telecom companies should also be penalised if their SIMs are found to be activated illegally.”
Munawwar Ahmed, a Lahore-based dealer with a cell phone company, says the SIM activation process has recently been streamlined. Now it is mandatory for the subscriber to visit a dealer with his original CNIC. He says the dealer will issue a SIM after inspecting the CNIC and immediately inform the PTA about the sale and also provide details of the subscriber along with his CNIC number and the code issued by the company to him (the dealer). “The subscriber will be able to get the SIM activated by calling 789 only once the information forwarded by the dealer is available with the PTA.”
He says people could get SIMs activated by providing information related to other people. “Now it will be difficult as retailer is also in the loop.”
Amir Pasha, Head of Public Relations Ufone, says the telecom industry has ensured that the regulations set by the PTA are implemented systematically. These, he says, include services like 668 which helps determine the number of SIMs registered against a CNIC and 789 for authenticity of SIM activation.
Without going into details, he says, “The process of sale and registration of all new Ufone SIMs are in line with the guidelines defined by the regulator.” He avoids commenting on the in-house mechanisms to keep a check on staff.
Farooq Niaz, Manager Public Relations and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) at Zong, asserts the rules set by regulators are followed strictly. For example, he adds, services like 668 are there to ensure that a person can check number of SIMs registered against his/her CNIC. “Moreover, we have always helped law-enforcing agencies to curb crime in any way we can and our stance on anti-terrorist activities is similar to that of the government.”
Farooq Niaz dispels the impression that employees have easy access to the NADRA’s data. A call centre agent, he explains, can only see the data when a call comes in for activation on 789, and that too for only limited fields and he/she cannot randomly access the Nadra’s database on their own. “Each login for activation is logged. Therefore, illegal access is not possible and data is secure at this end.”
Telenor Director Corporate Communications and CSR Atifa Asghar confirms the SIM activation process has recently been revised for increased security. For successful activation of new SIMs, the information provided at the time of issuance has to match the information provided at the time of activation, she adds.
If things are as streamlined as the cell phone companies’ claim, where lies the fault? TNS tried its best to seek the PTA version and repeatedly contacted the spokesperson Malahat Habib. However, she could not get the PTA chairman’s approval for the replies she had prepared for TNS till the filing of the report.
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