The Sind High Court (SHC) has ordered that all new SIMs will be sold
after biometric verification of the buyer. In addition to this, the
court made it compulsory for the existing mobile SIM holders to undergo
biometric verification process.Biometric authentication system is installed at the customer sales center by the National Database Registration Authority (NADRA) mobile demonstration, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) and telecom operators. It was originally developed by February 28, 2013 is expected to be ready to launch.
Previously, telecom operators are reluctant to install it on their franchise and customer service centers, due to high cost factor.
An official of a leading telecom operator while commenting on the current situation said, “we are fully ready for the installation of biometric system at our facilities and only waiting for the direction from PTA. The moment we get instruction from the regulator, installation will be done in no time”.
Even NADRA has fool proof and effective biometric authentication system, the problem lies in the second part of SHC orders. 120 million telecom users (even if we assume that 70 million is unique), how long it takes to verify that all existing users, the number of load NADRA server can handle it?
The person in charge said that this will be a long process, requiring an appropriate time to re-validate biological processes through the entire customer base.
