Limit to be imposed on number of sims that can be owned by a single person

Communications Authority of Maldives (CAM), on Tuesday, stated that efforts impose limits on mobile sims that can be owned by an individual will commence during this year’s May.

Parliament’s Committee on State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) summoned top officials from CAM to the committee’s meeting on Tuesday as part of efforts to inquire about the rationale behind the increased scam calls across Maldives. CAM’s Chief Executive Ilyas Ahmed, during the convening, said efforts will commence latest by this May to impose limits on the number of sims that can be owned by an individual.

Ilyas, underscoring having taken note of multiple sims registered to a single person, assured to undertake efforts to remedy the issue before the end of May.

“These efforts will commence latest by May. Within a three-month period starting then, the sims of  individuals that need to be deactivated will be deactivated, to establish order,” he said.

Noting that thousands of sims have registered to a single person – Ilyas said that CAM was working to verify the information of such persons in order to address the issue.

However, Ilyas explained that there were many such sims used legitimately. He exampled that many huge families have taken out multiple sims under the name of a single member for various members of the respective family. Nevertheless, CAM has requested to register such sims to the name of the person actually using the sim.

“We will commence efforts to deactivate sims as well latest by May. Estimating to settle the issue of such numbers and see the implementation of our new regulation imposing a limit on the number of sims that can be single-owned by an individual within approximately three months,” he detailed.

A report submitted by Maldives Police Service, at the request of SOE Committee, underscored the biggest challenge to stopping scam calls as various sims are being withdrawn under the name of a single individual. In their report, they also emphasized being guaranteed the participation of prison inmates in such scams.