{"id":481815,"date":"2023-03-01T07:20:25","date_gmt":"2023-03-01T05:20:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=481815"},"modified":"2023-03-01T07:36:31","modified_gmt":"2023-03-01T05:36:31","slug":"mtn-cracks-down-on-illegal-sim-cards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/481815-mtn-cracks-down-on-illegal-sim-cards.html","title":{"rendered":"MTN cracks down on illegal SIM cards"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mobile network operator MTN has started clamping down on illegally-registered SIM cards sold by its partner distributors.<\/p>\n

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

“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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

If a SIM is deregistered due to the expiry period, it can be RICA’d again.<\/p>\n

“The sales agent would simply restart the sales onboarding process using the existing SIMs,” MTN explained.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“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.<\/p>\n

“That includes having large numbers of SIMs unnecessarily ‘pending’ ahead of activation.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

MTN chief of corporate affairs Jacqui O’Sullivan<\/p><\/div>\n

An investigation by MyBroadband previously found<\/strong><\/a> it was incredibly easy to buy a pre-RICA’d SIM card from small cellular shops across Pretoria.<\/p>\n

Many sales agents or distributors perform the RICA registration process on the SIM cards en masse before selling them to customers.<\/p>\n

While doing so makes it easier for an innocent consumer to buy a SIM card quickly, it is illegal.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Pre-RICA’d SIM cards either give falsified details or those of the wrong person.<\/p>\n

This practice has proven to be a major headache for police investigations<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

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

Investigating officers often subpoena mobile networks for the RICA details of numbers linked to a crime.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

A significant problem seems to be that there was no validation of the personal details sales agents entered into the system.<\/p>\n

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

Often a subscriber’s name would consist of a mix of capitalised consonants, while ID numbers comprised just two or four digits.<\/p>\n

RICA does not require any verification of the information with third-party systems like the Home Affairs database.<\/p>\n

Doing so would require an active Internet connection, which is not readily available everywhere in South Africa.<\/p>\n

How MTN’s 72-hour timeout could help<\/h2>\n

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

Merchants would either have to sell them within 72 hours to ensure they are activated, or activate the cards themselves.<\/p>\n

The latter will require putting the SIM into a handset and repackaging it, which would raise suspicions from consumers.<\/p>\n

In addition, the activation SMS that MTN sends would ping that distributor or agent’s rough location.<\/p>\n

If an agent entered legitimate details during the process, they are in the clear.<\/p>\n

But the networks could more easily identify those who provided false information during the registration and activated the SIM card on the premises.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, it does not solve the problem that the system allows for capturing invalid, falsified, and incorrect information.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\n

Now read: Nokia and MTN sign 5G deal for South Africa<\/a><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MTN has started to automatically deregister SIMs that are not activated within three days of being RICA’d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341042,"featured_media":435170,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[84623,35,27981,42,18158],"class_list":["post-481815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cellular","tag-gregg-anderson","tag-headline","tag-jacqui-osullivan","tag-mtn","tag-regulation-of-interception-of-communications-and-provision-of-communication-related-information-act-rica"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481815"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341042"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481815"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":481877,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481815\/revisions\/481877"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}