Security threat: Cops blacklist lax SIM dealers
January 31st 2011
DC Correspondent
Jan. 30: More than a hundred agencies which were selling sim cards by various service providers, have been blacklisted by the state police. A senior police official said that for the past year, a strict vigil has been kept at the agencies and it was found that many were issuing sim cards without demanding legitimate identity proof.
Police said cases have been filed against agencies providing sim cards without address verifications and against all leading service providers across the state.
“There were incidents in which shopkeepers have deliberately disbursed sim cards on fictitious address proofs. We have also slapped cases on service providers across the state.
Admitted, it’s the agencies which sell sim cards to the customers, but the onus is on the service provider to cross-check the address proof in each case before activating the sim card. These companies need to make surprise visits to ascertain the authenticity as well as the efficiency of the agency,’’ a police official said.
Sources said that after cases were filed against the heads of the service providing companies, there were efforts to obtain a stay on the investigation. “Some of the companies had approached the courts to get a stay on the investigation and also to obtain anticipatory bail. We have held a series of meetings with the service providing companies to communicate the importance of verification of the documents. However, despite all this there were still instances of sim cards being issued based on fictitious documents,’’ a police official said.
In fact, the verification of the end user, or the Know Your Customer (KYC), will soon be a complicated process with the entry of Unique Identification (UID). It was recently announced that UID would be used as a proof of identity for telecom purpose. Which means UID will replace the responsibility of KYC obligations on mobile service providers.
An official said while this is `good news’ for the mobile service providers, it might also be used as a tool to avoid KYC. “It is true that UID is tied up with the biometric identification and biometrics can be linked only with one UID. However, at the same time, one fraudulent UID can be used for multiple fraudulent mobile connections in various frauds. While banks are liable if the KYC on the fraudulent customer fails, similar liability falls on UIDAI,” an official said.
“Hence, there’s a possibility that banks and mobile service providing companies might swear by the UID to fulfill their Know Your Customer obligations,’’ the official added.