MTN cracks down on illegal SIM cards

Mobile network operator MTN has started clamping down on illegally-registered SIM cards sold by its partner distributors.

The company recently sent a notice informing them it would automatically start deregistering SIMs that were not activated three days after being RICA’d.

“Effective 24 February 2023, MTN South Africa will implement a RICA deregistration for all SIMs that have been RICA’d but not activated (DMA’d) within 72 hours,” said MTN general manager for main market and sales execution, Gregg Anderson.

MTN told distributors that the purpose of the change was to encourage sales agents and customers to complete immediate activations as part of the natural sales process.

If a SIM is deregistered due to the expiry period, it can be RICA’d again.

“The sales agent would simply restart the sales onboarding process using the existing SIMs,” MTN explained.

MTN also said the amount of time permitted between a RICA registration and activation would vary as the operator analysed the optimal period it should allow.

MTN executive for corporate affairs Jacqui O’Sullivan told MyBroadband that the operator continuously reviewed its processes and procedures to ensure partners were better equipped to facilitate the RICA requirements.

“We believe that the introduction of this rule will alleviate some of the behavioural concerns that may be present in the market,” said O’Sullivan.

“That includes having large numbers of SIMs unnecessarily ‘pending’ ahead of activation.”

An investigation by MyBroadband previously found it was incredibly easy to buy a pre-RICA’d SIM card from small cellular shops across Pretoria.

Many sales agents or distributors perform the RICA registration process on the SIM cards en masse before selling them to customers.

While doing so makes it easier for an innocent consumer to buy a SIM card quickly, it is illegal.

The Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-related Information Act (RICA) determines that the information loaded into the system must match those of the buyer.

Pre-RICA’d SIM cards either give falsified details or those of the wrong person.

This practice has proven to be a major headache for police investigations.

If a cellphone is present during a crime, the police cannot use any RICA information of identified cellphone numbers to help track down suspects.

Investigating officers often subpoena mobile networks for the RICA details of numbers linked to a crime.

But a source familiar with the issue estimated that only in about 10% of cases were the police able to link a phone number to the actual suspect.

A significant problem seems to be that there was no validation of the personal details sales agents entered into the system.

“The person’s name, surname, ID, and address would sometimes just be a mixture of random letters,” the source said.

Often a subscriber’s name would consist of a mix of capitalised consonants, while ID numbers comprised just two or four digits.

RICA does not require any verification of the information with third-party systems like the Home Affairs database.

Doing so would require an active Internet connection, which is not readily available everywhere in South Africa.

How MTN’s 72-hour timeout could help

MTN’s new measures will make it more of a hassle for distributors or sales agents to pre-RICA SIM cards.

Merchants would either have to sell them within 72 hours to ensure they are activated, or activate the cards themselves.

The latter will require putting the SIM into a handset and repackaging it, which would raise suspicions from consumers.

In addition, the activation SMS that MTN sends would ping that distributor or agent’s rough location.

If an agent entered legitimate details during the process, they are in the clear.

But the networks could more easily identify those who provided false information during the registration and activated the SIM card on the premises.

Unfortunately, it does not solve the problem that the system allows for capturing invalid, falsified, and incorrect information.

However, the likelihood of finding a vendor that could readily provide a pre-RICA’s SIM for use on MTN’s network should now be lower.

---

Now read: Nokia and MTN sign 5G deal for South Africa