| NATIONAL SECURITY
Telecom body calls for accreditation of SIM packs
By SOLA FANAWOPO
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
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•Ernest
Ndukwe
Photo: Sun News Publishing
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Association of Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ATCON) has
called on the Nigerian Telecommunications Commission (NCC)
to mandate all the mobile telecommunications operators in
the country to commence the accreditation of Subscriber Identity
Modules (SIM) packs issued to their subscribers.
The accreditation of SIM packs is gradually assuming a global
practice as telcos around the world were mandated by regulators
to register key information on their subscribers for the purposes
of identification in case of possible crime.
Dr. Emmanual Ekuwem, the president of the telecom body, said
for the sake of national security, it is very pertinent to
know who is making and receiving calls or who send/receive
SMSs that are breaching or can breach national security.
According to him, the law enforcement agencies such as police,
EFCC, NIA, ICPC, SSS, customs, immigration, NDLEA, NAFDAC,
should have access to such information, while no one’s
privacy is being invaded.
“There is need to know who call or send SMSs to who,
when and where and when or how the law is being or has been
breached. Who is a threat to lives and property? This will
greatly aid criminal investigations.”
He argued that to guide against possible risk of cyber attack,
Nigeria should be able to identify all voice, data and video
sources and sink in the country. “With the mobile, fixed,
Internet seamless converged networks, we should, as a country,
be able to identify individuals who made threat calls, who
sent threat SMSs.”
Ekuwem said NCC as a matter of urgency should stop operators
from allowing people to hawk SIM packs henceforth. “Operators
should be mandated to define and register distribution and
dealer channels for SIM Packs.”
In addition, he said the channels should only sell SIM packs
after accreditation by the dealer/seller. Photocopy of the
buyer national passport data page, filling of accreditation
form, containing basic biodata and contact address information
should also be done.
And for over 40 million Nigerians who have collected their
SIM packs before should be giving a moratorium of six months
to get accredited by the telecom operators.
Also, Ekuwem said NCC should make sure that only accredited
phone numbers should exist in the operator’s subscriber
database after the moratorium.
And for the purposes of law enforcement, he proposed that
a system that will guarantee that only accredited persons
and agencies should be allowed to have access to subscriber
bio-database via a multilaterally agreed access due process.
And for the retention of the bio data, there should be inter-connectivity
with cyber-security database and mandatory call data retention
database of operators.
Ekuwem said if all these are done, new businesses would be
created of which thousands of Nigerians would be gainfully
employed.
“Such new businesses as data warehousing, data mining,
Storage Area Networks (SANs) development and management for
operators (manned by them or outsourced), communication protocol
development, applications software development, development
of network facilities and devices would emerged. ”
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