Unverified SIMs often become means for criminal activities and provide criminals to carry out activities freely without any threat. Unverified SIMs account for nearly 80 percent of criminal and terrorist activities in Pakistan. In order to deal with this situation, PTA has announced a new Biometric verification system to activate SIMs which will become operational from 1st April 2014.
The new system will be imposed in the provinces of Balochistan and Sindh for the time being and Punjab and KPK are expected to join in the near future. The Biometric verification system will be used when a customer buys a SIM after providing their CNIC. Then the customer will have to record their thumb impression which will be matched with the NADRA database in real time to ensure no one buys a SIM with a fake CNIC or one that does not belong to the person.
Initially 75000 outlets will be provided this facility throughout the country with 15000 being non exclusive where SIMs of all companies will be provided. The biometric devices here will be provided by USF after BoD approval while on the other outlets the cost will be shared by the operators.
Although this is a very positive measure it will not help to catch those unverified SIMs which are already in use. For that there is a need for complete re verification of all SIMs so tat the problem can be removed effectively.