In a significant move aimed at safeguarding mobile subscribers from cyberfrauds and optimizing the delivery of government-sponsored economic benefits, the Department of Telecommunications is in the final stages of implementing a new initiative to allocate a unique customer ID to mobile users.
The forthcoming mobile customer ID system will simplify the tracking of SIM cards under a single ID and record the locations where users acquired their SIM cards, as Financial Express reports. Furthermore, it will facilitate the seamless identification of individuals who own these SIM cards, among other functionalities.
This unique customer ID will be a comprehensive identification point for all primary and supplementary phone connections. This innovative concept shares similarities with the 14-digit Ayushman Bharat Digital Health Account (ABHA) health ID linked to the Aadhaar Card. ABHA facilitates easy access to medical records and provides medical professionals, such as doctors and insurers, instantaneous access to critical medical information.
This initiative will also serve as a preventive measure against issuing SIM cards to a single customer exceeding the permissible limit of nine. Currently, violations of this limit are only identified when the telecom department in various licensed service areas (LSAs) conducts audits using AI-based facial recognition technology.
Over the past six months, the Department of Telecommunications has disconnected more than 6.4 million fraudulent phone connections with the assistance of facial recognition technology, demonstrating the government’s commitment to enhancing cybersecurity and protecting mobile subscribers.
To address the concern of verifying the actual users of SIM cards, the government is considering requiring subscribers to declare who within their family will use the connection when obtaining a SIM card. This measure is a way to help telecom companies comply with the verifiable parental consent requirement under data protection laws in cases involving children’s data.
Government officials have emphasized that the Department of Telecommunications is actively exploring strategies to prevent the issuance of fraudulent connections. One such approach is to monitor connections through a unique consumer ID issued when a consumer applies for a connection.
Additionally, the plan includes categorizing these consumer IDs based on various demographics, including age, gender, marital status, income, education, and employment. The usage patterns of SIM cards associated with each consumer ID will be analyzed, enabling the government to issue directives to block specific IDs and associated SIM cards if any suspicious activity is detected.
Recently, telecom companies have raised concerns about obtaining verifiable parental consent for processing children’s data by the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act. One of the critical challenges they face is distinguishing between minors and adult consumers on their networks and establishing a framework for obtaining consent from parents.
The government has recently introduced new regulations requiring telecom companies to register SIM card sellers and conduct thorough KYC (Know Your Customer) checks before onboarding them into the system. These rules will become effective from December 1.
