It is now not in doubt that the SIM register being built in Ghana today is compromised because there are fraudulent registrations going on, where several SIM cards are being linked to the Ghana Cards of innocent people without their consent.
It is also obvious that the perpetrators are the staff and agents of telcos undertaking the SIM registration. This raises questions about the regulator and government’s claim that the process for the ongoing SIM registration was carefully and strategically designed to ensure we built a ROBUST SIM REGISTER. It would appear that, that statement was nothing more than the usual propaganda, because there are no real strategies in place to prevent the register from being compromised like the previous one.
At least three people, including a young chief, have so far reported having found that their Ghana Cards have been linked to SIM cards they don’t know anything about, without their consent. Two of the three have shared their experiences on social media. We have mentioned that of the chief but we have not told the full story yet.
For very genuine reasons, the chief pleaded anonymity, and we will respect that. But here is his full story.
On March 24, 2023, the chief invited a SIM registration agent he knew, to his office to assist him register a new MTN number for the purposes of a fundraiser he was assigned to coordinate for a group he belongs to.
The agent successfully assisted the chief to link the SIM to his Ghana Card via the *404# short code and then captured his biometrics as required by the second stage of the process. But the agent could not continue the process to get the card activated because he got feedback that the chief’s Ghana Card had exhausted the maximum of 10 numbers that can be assigned to each Ghana Card.
According to the chief, he did not trust the feedback so, he even accused the agent of using a faulty device, and then asked him to use the Ghana Card of one of his (the chief’s) workers to register the SIM and that went through without any challenge. This was when he actually realized that the feedback on his Ghana Card could be right.
So the chief probed further through an acquaintance within the industry and found that there were seven AirtelTigo SIM cards linked to his card, which he knew absolutely nothing about. According to him, he had never used AirtelTigo in his life so he does not even know how AirtelTigo staff or agents even got hold of his Ghana Card details.
So, he went to the nearest AirtelTigo office to verify for himself, and that was where things got interesting. At AirtelTigo he was given a form to fill and list all the “strange” phone numbers linked to his card. Imagine that an innocent and honourable person’s Ghana Card details had been stolen and he is rather being subjected to the stress of having to fill forms, when the telco could just have entered his Ghana Card details and pulled the required data.
Eventually, the AirtelTigo staff pulled the details and indeed all those seven numbers were linked to the chief’s Ghana Card.
“At this point the whole thing became scary for me and I began to think of how exposed we are as a people,” he said.
The AirtelTigo staff then proceeded to make calls to all seven numbers. Five of them did not ring at all – which could mean that the SIM cards have been activated but probably yet to be sold to willing customers – but two rang. Out of the two, only one was picked up by a guy who said his name was Honest. The AirtelTigo staff asked him (Honest) what card was used to register his SIM, but the staff did not let the chief hear the guy’s response. But she told him the card will be delinked from his SIM card and he had 30 days to regularize his registration or his SIM will be deactivated.
This is where the chief got even more worried – that he, the owner of the card, was required to provide evidence of his claim before the claim was even checked, but the one whose SIM has been linked to his card illegally has been given 30 days to regularize his SIM registration.
This clearly shows that the fraudulent SIM registration may be a deliberate strategy by the telcos, so that when it is exposed, the beneficiaries of the fraud will be given time to do a proper registration. That is most probably the way by which telcos are trying to beat the SIM registration deadline – making sure they register as many numbers as possible in the names of innocent people without their consent so that by the time cards are being deactivated, those fraudulently registered ones will be exempted.
The other issue the chief raised was that if he had not tried to register an additional SIM card, he would never have known that his Ghana Card had been used to register other SIM cards. Again, if the perpetrators had linked less than seven additional cards to his Ghana Card, his fourth SIM registration would have been successful and he would still never have known that other SIM cards were linked to his card. As we speak he is speaking with his lawyers to see if there is something to sue for in this whole incident. Someone must answer for this.
This is why it is very difficult to believe that the government and the industry regulator are really committed to building a robust SIM register, and not just collecting our biometric data for the benefit of some individuals with vested interest. If at this stage when over 20 million SIM cards have already gone through full registration, including bio capture, the SIM Register is still not robust enough to flag fraudulent registrations, then the integrity of the entire SIM register is in serious doubt.
Indeed, the method by which the second biodata is being captured have been questioned by the National Identification Authority (NIA), the only body mandated to build the unified national ID database. NIA captured fingerprint via a direct finger to screen touch method, while the NCA is making telcos take screenshots of people’s upper palm as a method of capturing their fingerprint. As a result, till date, not a single biodata captured as part of SIM registration has been verified against the NIA’s database, and yet NCA and Ministry of Communications want Ghanaians to believe they are using that biodata to build a robust SIM register. What is more apparent is that a grand fraud has been exacted on Ghanaians and we have not seen the end of it yet.
Now the duty bearer say they are preparing to issue a short code, possibly *402# to enable Ghanaians check for themselves, how many SIM cards are linked to our Ghana Cards. Whereas that is a good, it does not really solve the entire problem because the fraud has happened already and now no one can tell which of the SIM cards linked to any card is primary and which one is secondary. NCA said the short code will require some verification details to determine the actual owner of the card. We live to see how that will pan out.
We are however of the view that this part of the process is coming in as a fire fighting measure, which is a bit late in the day. It should have been part of the process from the onset, if indeed the vision is to build a robust SIM register. Now the fraudsters have already found a way to breach the system, and I bet, as the duty bearers are preparing to issue the short code, the fraudster maybe finding another way round that as well.
