No Bulk Buying of SIM Cards, Police Verification Must for Dealers: Govt Announces Reforms to Curb Fraud – News18

In a major transfer to curb cyber fraud, the federal government right this moment introduced discontinuing of shopping for of SIM playing cards in bulk and made police verification obligatory for each SIM card seller.

Union Minister for Communications, and Electronics & IT Ashwini Vaishnaw throughout a press convention on Thursday stated, “On the occasion of World Telecom Day in May, three customer-focused reforms were released [Central Equipment Identity Register, Know Your Mobile and ASTR]. Now, in addition to that, we have decided to come up with two more reforms. These are purely focused on user protection and reducing the cyber fraud cases,” the minister stated.

Vaishnaw said that since May, the federal government had detected and deactivated an astonishing 52 lakh connections that have been fraudulently obtained. This achievement was attributed to the implementation of the ‘Sanchar Saathi’ portal, which has confirmed instrumental in figuring out and neutralising fraudulent connections.

As a part of the crackdown, a staggering 67,000 sellers complicit in facilitating these illicit connections have been blacklisted and about 300 FIRs have been lodged towards these facilitating cyber fraud.

The minister burdened that the brand new directives, which shall be carried out quickly, would mandate a rigorous police verification and biometric authentication course of for brand new sellers of cellular SIM playing cards.

Further, the observe of buying SIM playing cards in bulk has been utterly terminated to cease fraudulent actions. Instead, a meticulous enterprise connection provision shall be launched, allowing bona-fide companies to amass connections following rigorous verification and registration protocols.

To be sure that the brand new measures are adopted, these discovered violating these guidelines would pay a hefty superb of Rs 10 lakh. The minister affirmed the dedication of the federal government to uphold the integrity of telecommunications networks and defend individuals from cybercrimes.

The minister identified that 17,000 illicitly obtained handsets have been rendered inoperable, neutralising their potential for felony use. Additionally, staggering 66,000 WhatsApp accounts linked to cyber fraud have been blocked. Vaishnaw famous that within the case of WhatsApp, the corporate cooperated with the federal government to resolve the involved points.

Moreover, practically 8,00,000 cost account wallets implicated in illicit transactions have been blocked, delivering a giant blow to the monetary underpinning of those felony actions.

According to Vaishnaw, as soon as the brand new measures are carried out throughout the nation, the Department of Communications hopes to see the modifications in 7 to eight months within the present cyber fraud state of affairs.