New SIM Card Law Sparks Controversy in the Philippines

Despite the overwhelming benefits that technology has provided mankind during the 21st century, protecting the personal information and privacy of the world’s billions of citizens is far more critical than purchasing the latest smartphone or laptop. For this reason, the recent enactment of the SIM Card Registration Act within the Southeast Asian nation of the Philippines has caused outrage among many of the country’s residents. To this point, “President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. on Monday (Oct 10) signed a measure mandating all SIM card users to register information like full names and addresses, sparking concerns on data privacy and safety.”

Subsequently, the provisions of the law mandate that telecommunications companies, in addition to third-party vendors that sell SIM cards within the Philippines, request a valid photo identification card prior to selling a SIM card to a citizen within the country. To this end, while the Philippines is far from the first country in the world to enact a mandatory SIM card registration law, as dozens of other nations have passed similar legislation in the past few years alone, these laws have also been heavily criticized by privacy advocates due to the inherent amount of personal data that many consumers are already disclosing concerning their lives and activities of a daily basis.

The intended purpose of the law

Generally speaking, mandatory SIM card registration laws work to undermine the ability of a consumer to communicate anonymously via cellphone, as any SIM card they purchase will be linked to their personal information. To this end, regarding the intended purpose of the Philippines’ new SIM Card Registration Act, president Marcos Jr. was also quoted as saying “We will soon be able to provide law enforcement agencies the tools needed to resolve crimes perpetrated with the use of these SIM cards as well as providing a strong deterrence against the commission of wrongdoing.” As such, the new regulation will enable law enforcement agencies within the Philippines to gather personal information pertaining to citizens within the country that may be under investigation for a particular reason.

However, privacy advocates and government officials, both within and outside of the Philippines, have questioned the effectiveness of mandatory SIM card registration laws with respect to the reduction of crime. To illustrate this point further, when many nations around the globe began enacting laws that would require citizens to register their SIM cards prior to getting a new cellphone in 2012, the European Union considered enacting similar legislation. However, the “European Commission requested that EU states provide evidence of actual or potential benefits from mandatory SIM card registration measures and, after examining the responses it received, concluded there was no benefit either to assisting criminal investigations or to the common market to having a single EU approach.”

Economic disenfranchisement

What’s more, consumer protection and civil rights groups within the Philippines have also argued that the new SIM Card Registration Act will also have an adverse effect on millions of poor communities within the country. For instance, citizens that reside in rural areas such as farmers and indigenous peoples often struggle to access the forms of personal identification that are needed to register a SIM card under the law, irrespective of the fact that many of the vast majority of these citizens will be law-abiding citizens. In this way, the law also has the potential to disenfranchise millions of additional citizens, as they will now be essentially breaking the law when looking to communicate with one another via cell phone.

On top of this, there are others that have argued that the law does nothing to deter criminals such as hackers that are legitimately using unregistered SIM cards to break the law. More specifically, Chuckie Calsado, Chairperson of the Advocates of Science and Technology for the People (AGHAM), stated that “The bill does not specifically address the issue of sim cards as a tool for hackers using it for spam and scamming activities, as it only mentioned the penalization for the breach of confidentiality and negligence from companies. Therefore, the SIM Registration Bill would only criminalize the acts of citizens who would fail to register their sim card but not the intended groups or individuals who will deliberately misuse it.”

Despite the fact that the Philippines’ new SIM Card Registration Act affords the nation’s citizens a 6-month grace period under which they can register any cell or smartphone they are currently using to communicate with each other, the enactment of the law has shaken the nation and made international headlines. With this being the case, government officials within the Philippines will have to consider the privacy implications of the newly passed SIM Card Registration Act, as data protection issues are a topic of discussion that can be ignored no longer.