LAHORE(MEDIA)
The sale and activation of mobile phone SIMs will become fully automatic when biometric verification process becomes operational to avoid any misuse of secret data of Pakistanis available with the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra).
According to the process being chalked out by the Cellular Mobile Operators (CMOs), Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), ministries of interior, information and technology and other stakeholders, the application should be designed in a manner that complete process right from sale of SIM to its activation will involve minimum human intervention.
The only manual entry of data to be made at time of sale is of the MSISDN (Mobile Station – ISDN) sold and in case of biometric devices the CNIC number of the activator.The MSISDN (Mobile Station – ISDN) number is the telephone number that is assigned to a mobile user. This telephone number makes it possible for any subscriber of the plain old telephone network to call a mobile station.
According to the proposed draft, a copy of which is available with The News, the SIM can be purchased on purchaser’s original CNIC and activated through activator’s CNIC and biometric verification.
The purchaser and activator can be the same as well. However the onus will remain on the activator.The pre-sale SMS process will coexist with verification through biometric devices till the time parallel operation of the two verification regimes (old regime i.e. 789 CC based verification and new regime i.e. biometric based verification) remains.Pre-sale SMS process will get eliminated once complete cut over to the biometric-based SIM verification is executed.