Security worry may prompt TRAI to ask cos to wait before giving user second SIM

A woman presents a E&L waterproof mobile phone during Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, February 28, 2017. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard - RTS10TAU

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has taken suo motu cognizance of the security situation in the country and may advise the department of telecommunications (DoT) to direct mobile service providers to wait for some time before issuing a second SIM card to the same user. This ‘wait’ could be a few hours or even a day, an official at the regulator told Moneycontrol.

“We felt there was a scope for unscrupulous activity at franchisees’ end where a franchisee could make the prospective subscriber press her thumb more than once and issue more than one SIM in her name without her knowledge. This SIM could then fall into others’ hands and be used by them,” the official said.

Activation of a new SIM earlier used to happen in a couple of days after the address verification of a mobile subscriber but now takes only a few hours. It’s only the postpaid connections now that take 3-4 days to get activated.

TRAI’s proposal may not be foolproof but the official said the issue of another SIM after the lapse of a certain amount of time would give the companies enough time to verify with the subscriber if she had applied for more than one SIM or not. The user could still always go to a franchisee of another mobile company and get a new SIM. A mobile subscriber is currently allowed to keep nine active SIMs.

He said the companies had been informed of the regulator’s intent and they were all on board. TRAI has acted on its own in this matter with there being no such request from DoT in this regard, he said.