You Have 18 Days To Register Your SIM Card

Kenyans have until October 15 to register their SIM card or see their SIM cards deactivated. The communication Authority of Kenya (CA) said the move is aimed at getting rid of the illegally registered Sim cards which abet cyber crimes in the country.

The regulator has so far deactivated 287,214 SIM cards between April and June this year. CA requires mobile service providers Safaricom, Telkom, and Airtel to retain a copy of the identification documents of every subscriber to improve data accuracy.

New data from the Communication Authority of Kenya (CA) shows that telecommunication operators have deactivated a total of 411,903 SIM since the start of 2022, with 124,689 SIM cards deactivated between January and March.

“During the 2021-2022 financial year, the mobile phone telephone service sub-sector was marked by a significant regulatory intervention that involved updating the registration details of all SIM cards in the country. This exercise resulted in the deactivation of SIM cards registered under the wrong identification details,” the CA said in its quarterly report for June.

The Communication Authority of Kenya in April extended the registration exercise to October 15 to give more time to Kenyans who had not registered to complete the exercise. The extension also followed extensive consultations between CA and the Mobile Network Operators.

The regulator warned consumers against blaming the authority for disconnecting their SIM cards after the lapse of the deadline.

At the time, CA Director Ezra Chiloba said Safaricom had achieved a 67 percent compliance rate while Airtel Kenya and Telkom had a compliance rate of 55 and 33 percent respectively.

The move comes after a noticeable multitude of SIM cards were sold to people by unlicensed operators and agents, with the most unregistered cards discovered among people who bought their SIM cards before 2015, when the regulation was ineffective.

CA warned that those who will be caught in possession of unregistered SIM cards will be risking a fine of up to 300,000 shillings or serve a jail term of six months or both.

Related Content: Over 124,000 SIM Cards Deactivated in the Ongoing SIM Registration Exercise