By BIN Staff | 09:55 PM Sepember 20, 2023
The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) official said on Wednesday that uploading of photos of animals and providing fake information in subcriber identity module (SIM) registration are punishable by law.
“Technically speaking po, may violation ‘yun which is fineable… So ‘pag nalaman namin kung sino ‘yung nagregister at ni-report din sa amin, we can use the SIM card registration law to go after that person,” Undersecretary Jeffrey Ian Dy said in an interview on CNN Philippines’ Newsroom Ngayon.
Dy reminded the public that under the SIM registration law, giving false identity, lying, and even the uninformed buying and selling of registered SIM are classified as criminal acts.
He said the penalties are imprisonment of from six to two years, or a fine of not less than ₱100,000 but not more than ₱300,000.
On Sept. 5, officials of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) told a Senate hearing the registration of a SIM using a photo of a monkey.
Jeremy Lotoc, NBI Cybercrime Division chief, said the agency tried to register SIM bought from different telecommunications companies as part of its investigation.
Live selfie
The National Telecommunications Commission has released a memorandum order requiring telco subscribers to submit live selfie photos during SIM registration.
At a Senate committee hearing, NTC commissioner Ella Blanca Lopez said public telecommunications entities have been given three months to install technologies that will require live selfies.
Lopez said the memo was issued to clean up the registry as there were registrants who used fake IDs and stock images because the telcos had no database to match.
