In the U.S. consumers can buy a SIM card to activate their mobile phone from just about any electronic retail store, mobile carrier outlet, eBay (News - Alert) and even the nearest 711. When making this purchase there are no regulatory laws that users have to follow, all they have to do is pop it into their SIM card in a prepaid or registered mobile phone and begin making calls - a simple and easy task. However, users around the world do not get to enjoy these SIM card freedoms that U.S. gets to and in fact, it is actually used by government officials to monitor and their citizens.
Although this SIM card regulation may not sound like a hot issue to the average reader, maybe the thought of the government taking away the right to have a mobile device may make this topic clearer. Let’s just say one day President Obama decided that U.S. citizens had to register their mobile phones, and if they didn’t their services would be shut off. Now imagine how the public would react.
A SIM card holds personal information about the user including all of their contacts, and once it is registered to a certain network, the provider has the ability to track their GPS coordinates. Some people may feel the need to register their mobile phones, while others would rather say off the radar and keep their whereabouts more private.
Whichever the user chooses, the point is, in the U.S. we have the choice of registering our SIM card while other countries do not offer their citizens that same freedom. For instance, mobile users of United Arab Emirates (UAE) telecom operators have to register their SIM cards on a certain day, and if they don’t their outgoing calling feature will be deactivated, according to Emirates247. If after three months users don’t register their SIM cards, their services will be completely cut off.
The Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) are also enforcing a similar law, which was originally passed in 2010 that prohibited anyone to sell a mobile phone or SIM car with getting a customer’s personal details. According to telecompaper, TCRA is working on a way to mark sure that all unregistered SIM cards are disabled in the next few weeks.
As countries continue to roll out these laws it is important for users living in a digital age, where mobility usage is drastically increasing, to understand how easily their personal information can be taken away by a microscopic chip. For those who may not realize it, a SIM card is more valuable than one might think and in its own a freedom that not everyone has.
Edited by Jamie Epstein