Six mobile phone operators sign deal with EC to verify subscribers’ SIM registration info

Six mobile phone operators have signed a deal with the Election Commission to match National Identity Cards data with information provided by their clients at the time of SIM card registration.

The agreement will allow the operators - Grameenphone, Robi, Banglalink, Airtel, Citycell and state-owned Teletalk - to take help of the National Identity Registration Wing (NIDW) archive where information pertaining to citizens’ is stored by the EC.
  
The agreement was signed on Tuesday at an event at the NIDW in Dhaka’s Agargaon, said the wing’s Director Anwar Hossain.
 
The government took initiatives to verify subscriber data and SIM re-registration following allegations that many SIMs were either registered under fake names or not registered at all.
 
Criminals were said to have been using many of these SIMs.
 
The operator companies then sought permission to use the EC’s archive to crosscheck the subscribers’ NIDs and registration information.

Hossain told bdnews24.com: “Many companies have applied for the verification service. Deals are being signed with those approved by the EC.
 
“The bilateral agreements with the six mobile companies have been inked today as a part of that process.”
 
Robi’s spokesperson Ekram Kabir told bdnews24.com that the deal was ‘undoubtedly a huge step’.
 
“Now we’ll be able to accurately verify the subscribers’ information during the SIM registration process with the help of the EC connectivity,” he said.
 
The Election Commission currently has in its archive data on 96.2 million Bangladeshi citizens who are either aged 18 or adults.
 
However, according to telecom regulators BTRC, more than 130 million of Bangladesh’s 160 million people had mobile phone SIMs until August this year.
 
The mobile companies will pay a fixed charge and fee to use the archive – Tk 500,000 one-off charge and Tk 2 to verify information of each citizen.
 
Apart from the telecom operators, the Bangladesh Bank, National Board of Revenue, Department of Immigration and Passports and two private banks have so far also used the online NID Verification Service.