BACOLOD City – The city council is supporting a bill seeking to help law enforcement agencies track down individuals who use mobile phones with post-paid and pre-paid cards to perpetrate nefarious activities, like kidnapping and petty crimes.
House Bill No. 7233 seeks the passage of the “Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) Card Registration Act,” which would require all users to register their SIM cards.
Councilor Sonya Verdeflor authored an approved resolution supporting the bill, which was also passed on its second reading at the House of Representatives.
SIM is an embedded circuit that stores international subscriber identity and related keys used to identify and authenticate subscribers on mobile devices, like phones and computers.
The SIM Card Registration Act, if passed, will require every person to present a valid identification card with photo before acquiring a SIM card for registration purposes.
Verdeflor said the proposed law prohibits the disclosure of any information in the SIM card “unless access to information has been granted upon written consent of the subscriber, or upon a duly issued subpoena or order of a court upon finding of probable cause, or upon written request from a law enforcement agency in relation to an ongoing investigation, that a particular number requested is used in the commission of a crime or that it was used as a means to commit an unlawful act.”/PN
