Communications regulator Icasa desires to maneuver the administration of the Rica Act, South Africa’s Sim card registration legislation, away from the division of justice and underneath its personal oversight.
That is in line with a presentation by Icasa to parliament’s portfolio committee on communications & digital applied sciences, during which it stated the “problem of the proliferation of registered Sims impacts Icasa’s capacity to effectively handle the usage of numbering assets”.
“There’s a direct correlation between the obligations of the DoJ and people of Icasa in so far as Sim registration is worried, since Rica and the Electronics Communications Act mandate Icasa to handle the numbering assets of South Africa,” Siya Nkamisa, appearing government for areas and client affairs at Icasa, stated within the presentation.
“We have now a mandate to manage the environment friendly use of numbering assets and that talks on to what number of Sim playing cards might be in use, which then has a bearing on the administration technique for telephone numbers because of unregistered Sim playing cards.”
In keeping with Nkamisa, Icasa’s lack of oversight of the Rica database, which is run by the DoJ, makes it tough for Icasa to implement numbering laws successfully, whereas additionally opening the door to legal actors to make the most of improperly registered Sims.
Rica was gazetted twenty years in the past to guard South African cellphone consumer knowledge by the regulation of interception by corporations and legislation enforcement. On the flipside, Rica’s stipulations concerning Sim card registration have been designed to assist hint legal communications with a view to combating crime.
Beneath hearth
Rica’s Sim card registration guidelines have come underneath hearth as they’re simply and extensively circumvented by distributors who do bulk registrations and promote pre-registered Sim playing cards to prospects. This permits legal syndicates to facilitate communications concerning illegal actions utilizing Sim playing cards that aren’t registered in their very own names, making it tough for legislation enforcement personnel to hint the communications again to the individuals concerned.
Democratic Alliance MP and social gathering spokeswoman on correctional providers Kabelo Kgobisa-Ngcaba instructed TechCentral in a February interview that Rica must be relooked and new guidelines launched to make it harder for customers to amass pre-registered Sims. In keeping with police minister Senzo Mchunu, round 62% of extortion circumstances investigated by the police contain the usage of unregistered Sims.
Learn: DA requires harder Rica guidelines in crime struggle
Securi-Tech, an organization specialising in safe Sim packaging, estimates that as much as 60 million Sim playing cards are incorrectly registered in South Africa every year.
Icasa’s Nkamisa in his presentation to parliament stated one of many causes the administration of Rica ought to maneuver over to Icasa is that it has the authority to make sure that cell operators register the Sim playing cards they produce appropriately and reply appropriately to lawful requests for the interception of knowledge. Nevertheless, since Icasa has no entry to the Rica database, implementing these laws turns into tough for Icasa to manage.
In a evaluation of Rica laws performed by Icasa, the regulator has requested entry to the Rica database from the DoJ, with a view of taking on your entire Sim registration course of. Ought to this request fail, Icasa has requested {that a} biometric characteristic be added to the Sim card registration course of to drive new activations to examine in opposition to the inhabitants registry at dwelling affairs, thereby limiting bulk registrations.
“The authority is presently contemplating its place going ahead on whether or not it will be higher positioned to manage the sim registration course of with a view handle the allocation of numbers effectively,” stated Nkamisa. – © 2025 NewsCentral Media
Get breaking information from TechCentral on WhatsApp. Enroll right here.
