Islamabad: Pakistan is considering stronger identity checks for SIM issuance after the National Assembly Standing Committee on Interior and Narcotics Control was told that approximately 18.2 million SIMs had been blocked during the previous two-and-a-half years. The committee expressed concern over illegal SIM issuance, misuse of biometric information and growing financial fraud.
The official National Assembly statement says the committee called for enhanced verification technologies, including facial and iris recognition, along with immediate alerts to customers whenever a new SIM is issued in their name. Importantly, these technologies were discussed as measures to strengthen the system — the official record does not say facial verification has already been made mandatory for every new SIM.
PTA Chairman Maj Gen (retd) Hafeezur Rehman told the committee that the existing biometric verification system was being bypassed. Dawn reported that fraudsters were allegedly obtaining fingerprint data from airports, driving-licence centres and passport offices. Joint PTA-NCCIA operations reportedly involved 110 raids, 29,000 illegal SIMs blocked and 171 arrests, while data related to around 600,000 people was recovered.
Several additional security ideas were discussed. The PTA chairman proposed that SIMs should be issued through NADRA’s PAK ID system, a State Bank representative suggested linking each SIM to a single IMEI number, while MNA Khawaja Izharul Hassan proposed automatic SMS alerts whenever a new SIM is registered against a citizen’s CNIC. These remain proposals/recommendations, not confirmed nationwide rules at this stage.
