The attention of the National Communications Authority (NCA) has been drawn to the leasing/renting of Subscriber Identity Modules (SIMs) by some individuals and entities to foreigners and nationals in Ghana.
The NCA stated categorically that such individuals and entities and their mode of operations have not been sanctioned by the Authority. Their business model is classified as pre-registration of SIMs for use and as such contravenes Section 73b (1) of the Electronic Communications (Amendment) Act, 2016 which states that, ‘A person shall not deal in a pre-registered subscriber identity module or user identity module’.
This unauthorised and illegal service violates the objective of the SIM Registration Exercise which seeks to link a SIM to a verified identity of an individual as a means of curbing criminal activities and maintaining a SIM database with integrity.
In addition, usage of this service means that compliance with the Data Protection Act cannot be established. Users also run the risk of privacy issues due to the probability that a new user will have access to data that may have been transacted on the SIM previously by the former user.
Given the process of usage of these SIMs, identity theft likewise becomes a matter of concern in the renting of SIMs.
