Telecom Ministry Introduces Two Reforms For Protection Of Mobile Users
To promote safe utilization of telecom resources in order to facilitate protection of mobile users, Ashwini Vaishnaw, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, today launched two reforms. According to the ministry of communications, the reforms — KYC Reforms and Point of Sale (POS) registration Reform – is part of Government of India’s commitment to foster a digitally inclusive society while maintaining the highest standards of security and customer protection.
These two reforms are in direction of earlier reforms introduced with a launch of Sanchar Saathi, a citizen centric portal that has empowered India”s fight against the menace of cybercrimes and financial frauds, the ministry said.
Point-of-Sale (POS) Registration Reforms introduces the process for mandatory registration of Franchisee, Agents and Distributors (PoS) by Licensees. “This will help in eliminating the rogue PoS who by fraudulent practices issue SIMs to anti-social/anti-national elements,” the statement said.
“The PoS registration process includes indisputable verification of PoS by Licensee. The process mandates written agreement between the PoS and the Licensees. If a PoS indulges in any illegal activities, it will be terminated and blacklisted for a period of three years. All the existing PoS will be registered as per this process by Licensees within 12 months,” the statement added.
KYC Reforms, according to the ministry, is a process to uniquely identity a customer and enable his traceability before providing him telecom services. “Strengthening of the existing KYC process is one of the tools in protecting the subscribers of telecom services from any probable frauds and thereby enhancing the confidence of general public in the digital ecosystem,” the ministry said.
To prevent misuse of printed Aadhaar, the demographic details will mandatorily be captured by scanning QR code of printed Aadhaar. In case of disconnection of a mobile number, it will not be allocated to any other new customer till expiry of 90 days. A subscriber has to undertake complete KYC for replacement of his SIM and there will be bar of 24 hours on outgoing & incoming SMS facilities.
