Supreme Court seeks subscriber verification regime in place for mobiles

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court expressed concern over the possibility of mobile phones being misused to perpetuate fraud and asked the Modi government to get back with a subscriber verification regime within two weeks.

The court was acting on a petition filed by the New Delhibased Lok Niti Foundation, which said mobile phones could be used for anti-national and criminal activities in the absence of a 100% verification mechanism.

According to the petition, despite directions by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India ( Trai), there were about 5.25 crore unverified mobile phone subscribers in the country.

It said 5% of the 105 crore subscribers as of February 2016 were still unverified. A bench led by Chief Justice of India JS Khehar said on Monday that the possibility of fraud by unverified subscribers was real and asked the government to get back with a mechanism to vet the identity of all mobile phone subscribers in the country.

The NGO, through lawyer Ashok Dhamija, demanded that mobile phones be linked to Aadhaar identity numbers to prevent the misuse of telecom services. It demanded that the government set up a 100% verification regime that would check identities and addresses.

“Unverified SIM cards pose a serious threat to country’s security as they are routinely used in criminal and terrorist activities, thereby affecting the citizens’ right under Article 21of the Constitution,” the NGO said.

The society claimed it had earlier submitted representations to both the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and Trai to revise the Mobile Subscribers Verification Policy to incorporate the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG) suggestions to plug loopholes in the system, but no effective action was taken.

“While easy access to mobile phones in India has resulted in several benefits to the citizens, it has also led to increased threat of potential misuse of mobile phones,” the Lok Niti Foundation said. “The fact that one can easily get a new mobile phone connection without proper verification of the details of the subscriber has added to the threat of this potential misuse.”