Consumer advocacy group CitizenWatch on Wednesday urged the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) and the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) to embark on a strong collaborative effort to boost the government’s subscriber identification module (SIM) registration campaign.
“The DICT and the NTC need to work in tandem with the telcos to ramp up the information drive,” said CitizenWatch Philippines co-convenor Kit Belmonte.
“Those in urban centers and who are part of the formal economy may have no problems registering, but the subscriber base we are talking about reaches to the entire archipelago. We have to let them know of the dangers of the lack of responsible use of SIMs, and the potential damage that fraudsters can inflict on hapless ordinary consumers,” the group said.
Earlier, the country’s biggest telecommunication companies have each called for the extension of the SIM card registration period citing government ID requirements and weak signals in isolated areas as reasons why their customers need more time.
CitizenWatch Philippines, Belmonte said, has long recognized how important extensive connectivity and access to digital technologies can propel our country to prosper and compete in the global digital economy.
“We all became dependent on mobile phones services when the pandemic-induced lockdowns hit us three years ago,” he said. Despite the restrictions caused by the lockdown, Belmonte said Filipinos, were able to perform their functions.
This, however, emboldened malicious and opportunistic minds to take advantage of hapless consumers.
“Unfortunately, this was also the period when we saw a rise in deceiving text messages purporting to provide jobs they never applied to or announce that someone had won a contest they never even joined,” he said.
Belmonte said callers from unknown numbers, identifying themselves as bank employees, have also deceived some customers to give out passwords and other sensitive information, leading to fraud.
“But when we have a solid database of who owns which number, then these fraudulent calls and texts could be traced to the perpetrators and hopefully lead to their arrest,” said Belmonte.
“We at CitizenWatch believe that mandatory SIM card registration will help protect telco subscribers from cybercriminals by stripping them of their anonymity shield. We hope the DICT and NTC will grant the extension for SIM card registration and work with telcos in launching a more aggressive information campaign,” the group said. -30-