SIM registration: Leveraging technology for crime control

The absence of subscribers identification database has serious security implications for the country. Though one of the principal aims of the ongoing SIM registration in the country is to minimise criminal activities, experts say its impact on crime control may not be more than average. DAYO OKETOLA reports. On July 6, 2008, a news magazine, The News, alleged an unholy alliance between two judges of the First Osun State Election Petition Tribunal and Mr. Kunle Kalejaiye, counsel to the Governor of Osun State, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola. The magazine reported unlawful telephone conversations between the judges and the governors lawyer. It, indeed, detailed the records of calls and text messages between the parties involved on the MTN network within a particular period. Though the rest of the story is now history, it, nevertheless, served as a significant pointer to the role technology and telecommunications could play in bursting crimes. One of the reasons for the Subscribers Identification Module card registration is to minimise the incidence of crimes easily perpetrated by some users of GSM phones. No doubt, the GSM revolution in the country did not only come with its excitement but with an upsurge in criminal acts too. The relevance of SIM registration to crime prevention, according to experts, is premised on the fact that the identity of call makers can be established after perpetrating the criminal act. Ostensibly, the law enforcement authorities will be able to establish the identity of the perpetrator through a recourse to the databases of the telecoms network in the wake of a particular incident or threat. The Nigerian Communications Commission specifically said that SIM registration would enhance security, help eliminate fraud and reduce crime rate in the country. According to the Acting Executive Vice-Chairman, NCC, Dr. Bashir Gwandu, as long as the identities of subscribers on the digital mobile network remain unknown, innocent subscribers will remain at great risk of being duped or kidnapped. By insisting on the registration of all SIM cards, the Federal Ministry of Communications and Information was directly aiming at limiting mobile phone-assisted crimes in the country. Experts, however, argue that SIM registration may not be fool-proof, adding that without proper intelligence to complement it, the whole exercise may not achieve its set objectives. A trustee of the International Institute of Professional Security, Lagos, Mr. Tunde Akingbade, generally scored the impact of the SIM registration excercise on crime control average.

Though he admitted that SIM registration would check crimes, he, however, observed that criminals had a way of being ahead of the authorities in whatever they did. According to him, subscribers with ill-motives may not supply accurate or reliable information about themselves. Akingbade, who is also a security consultant with the Centre for Security Education and Research, urged the Federal Government to be alive to its responsibility and block all loopholes in the SIM registration exercise because those who have criminal intentions are also creative in their criminality. He said, Much more than SIM registration, I believe there should be a network between security agencies and telecommunications companies, whereby if a SIM card is reportedly used to perpetrate crime, the owner can be immediately tracked in the location where the crime was committed. It was through the same mode that Pablo Escoba, a Colombian drug baron was tracked and killed. Crime prevention and detection are done through the use of intelligence. You can register a SIM but if there is no intelligence and networking, anybody can use the SIM to commit crime and get away with it, he added. The House of Representatives Committee on Communications, on Friday, directed the NCC to ensure the compulsory registration of all SIM cards used by mobile phone subscribers in Nigeria within the next six months. The registration exercise will capture the biometric identity of each mobile phone user, eliminate the problem of anonymity in telephony in Nigeria and curb the excesses of the kidnappers and other criminal elements who have perpetrated various acts of criminality using unregistered mobile phones. The NCC had proposed a budget of N6.1bn for the project and had gone ahead to defend it before the House of Representatives. Gwandu said although the registration had not started, the NCC would embark on the project as soon as the law makers approved its budget. Gwandu also explained that the NCC would restrict itself to SIM cards already in use, while the mobile phone operators had the responsibility of registering every new SIM card purchased before allowing such new cards access to their network. The Chairman, House Committee on Communication, Mr. Dave Salako, had bemoaned the proliferation of crimes through mobile phones and the seeming helplessness of security agencies in tracking the criminals. He argued that once every mobile phone user was registered with all the vital statistics lodged in an official data bank, it would become difficult for anyone to use the phone to terrorise other people. He urged the NCC to ensure that the registration of SIM cards was completed within the stipulated period to remove the current apprehension among millions of mobile phone subscribers in the country.

A reliable source in the Presidency, who asked not to be named, noted that the whole idea of SIM registration was to identify phone users, adding that the exercise was not a one-stop shop for cleaning the society of crimes. It is just a fundamental process, which is aimed at identifying phone users. It is only when you can identify the subscribers that you can then determine whether someone is responsible for one crime or the other, he said. The sources, who ranked the possible effect of SIM registration on combating crime as a little above average, however, noted that the Federal Government should be commended on the initiative. Backing SIM registration with regard to battling crime, the Chairman, Teledom Group, Dr. Emmanuel Ekuwem, noted that security must take precedence over business, adding that SIM registration would provide an accessible database of citizens in the absence of any at the moment and also help improve security. According to him, kidnappers negotiate conditions for the release of their prey with the families of the victims and the Police, leaving everyone helpless because the SIM cards can not be traced or tracked. With increasing cases of kidnappings across the country, experts say SIM card registration can reduce the incident by over 90 per cent. In all cases of kidnappings in the last few years, Kidnappers have negotiated for ransom and release of their victims through mobile phones, Akingbade said. According to telecomsinsight, SIM registration is a growing trend across Africa. A dual motivation generally to have more control over markets and to help fight crime means that more and more governments are looking to put registration in place. Some, such as South Africa and Botswana, have already put it fully in practice, while Kenya, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Cote dIvoire, Egypt, Ghana and Tanzanian are at varying stages of the process. Similar schemes have been implemented elsewhere in Japan, Australia, Thailand and Germany to stop terrorists, drug dealers and gangs from using anonymous numbers. While African governments say the move will boost security and curb phone-related crime, some fear it will, instead, be used to monitor and crack down on opposition figures. The ease with which Africans could get a SIM card at a very cheap rate on the street with no need for documentation, according to the United Nations, helped move official user numbers from just one million in 1996 to around 350 million by the end of 2009. With SIM registration, experts also fear that some of the SIM cards may be deactivated for failure to register. Also many Nigerians have more than one SIM card, mainly to avoid the costs of calling one network from another. Analysts say many of these are likely to be affected.