Customers of Etisalat (News - Alert) and du may be in a bit of a hurry, but there’s going to be a lot of waiting ahead. Today is the deadline to re-register their SIM cards, or else their services will be blocked, and eventually cut completely.
The service providers, located in the United Arab Emirates, sent out messages telling their customers to re-register their cards, in order to better protect against confidentiality infringement and identity theft. This is the third step in the process, and those who will be waiting in line are those who have completed the first two; the 1.3 million who haven’t have already been cut off.
Early in the morning, people began lining up to complete their registration applications. It had to be done in person, for inexplicable reasons, leaving people waiting in line for hours. Some stores and kiosks were understaffed, with only three or so staff members dealing with at least ten times that amount of customers, although many stores said they were prepared for a large amount of customers, but evidently not enough. That was obviously not the case.
There are mixed feelings about the need to re-register. Many are saying that while it is a major inconvenience, it is for the sake of security, so they can forgive the hassle.
“Registration of their numbers is a crucial step towards preventing the global threat of identity theft and misuse,” said Ayman El Dessouky, Etisalat’s chief sales officer. “Etisalat has extended all necessary support to the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority’s My Number, My Identity campaign by introducing new registration channels and adding new partners to ease the process for customers.”
Still, even if it’s for a good cause, surely there’s an easier way to go about it. The registration requires a valid form of identity, but there are ways to present those and re-register online. Yes, it is important for security, but that means it should have been prepared and handled better in the first place.
What’s done is done, though, and once the customers get through the lines, they’ll be able to use their phones as normal, with all their data and information secure. This should, however, stand as a stark lesson on how not to have customers re-register their SIM cards.
Edited by Ashley Caputo