Smart Communications begins preparations for the SIM registration law, as Congress transmits the bill for the President’s signature.
“We are carefully reviewing the key updates in the currently ratified bill and look forward to contributing to the crafting of the bill’s implementing rules and regulations, ready to bring our knowledge of global best practices to the table,” said Atty Roy D. Ibay, Smart VP and Head of Regulatory Affairs.
Last September, the House of Representatives approved the SIM Card Registration Bill, passing the final reading. Amid the rampant proliferation of text and smishing scams, the bill seeks to mandate the registration of prepaid SIM cards.
Alongside their support for SIM registration, Smart and parent company PLDT also highlights its long-standing consumer protection initiatives including measures aimed at curbing mobile phone-aided criminal activities such as text scams.
See also: Text scammers change tactics, switch to aggregators
In addition to blocking SIMs that send ‘smishing’ messages, Smart has also blocked Uniform Resource Locators (URL) linked to these illegal activities. From June to August alone, Smart has blocked 167,000 numbers that were found to have been used in fraudulent activities. The network has also blocked around 342 million smishing messages in the same time frame.
