PS warns telcos over continued use of unlisted lines
Mr Mutua Muthusi (right), the CCK director of consumer and public affairs, addresses journalists on the switching off of unregistered SIM cards on Monday. With him is Nzioka Waita, the director of corporate affairs at Safaricom. Photo/Emma Nzioka
What you need to know:
Information and Communications permanent secretary Bitange Ndemo said telcos would be penalised Sh300,000 for every unregistered active subscriber found within their networks.
The new tough measures are Kenya’s most punitive fines in the multi-billion shilling telecoms sector, where most penalties are mostly less than Sh1 million.
Kenya is following in the footsteps of Nigeria and Rwanda, which introduced hefty fines against telecommunication companies that fail to meet quality checks
Mobile telephone operators face a fine of up to Sh1.8 billion for failing to switch off about six million unregistered lines in their networks.
Information and Communications permanent secretary Bitange Ndemo said telcos would be penalised Sh300,000 for every unregistered active subscriber found within their networks.
“Operators will now bear the intermediary liability for criminal acts committed by persons using unregistered lines,” said Dr Ndemo at a press briefing Wednesday. “This is warning to the operators that they must account for every SIM card they release to the market.”
Subscribers would also be fined Sh300,000 or be jailed for three years for using unlisted lines.
Dr Ndemo said the regulations aimed at stemming cases of criminal activities such as fraud, extortion, kidnapping and hate speech perpetuated through mobile phones would be gazetted Thursday.
The Communication Commission of Kenya has also extended to Friday the deadline for the telcos – Safaricom, Airtel, Essar (yu) and Orange – to block all unregistered lines or face the full force of the law.
The switchoff has been on the cards since 2009 when President Kibaki issued a directive that all SIM cards be registered to allow tracing of users, but has been postponed many times due to lack of legal backing.
An amendment to the Kenya Information and Communication Act was passed by Parliament last year that compels mobile operators to keep a register of customers they provide services to.
CCK director for consumer and public affairs Mutua Muthusi said all SIM cards, including those used in modems, tablets and GPS tracking devices need to be registered.
Data from the industry regulator shows that as at December 28, only 24.79 million subscribers or 80.4 per cent of the total active mobile lines in the country had been registered. However, the number is expected to increase following the additional time provided.
The new tough measures are Kenya’s most punitive fines in the multi-billion shilling telecoms sector, where most penalties are mostly less than Sh1 million.
Kenya is following in the footsteps of Nigeria and Rwanda, which introduced hefty fines against telecommunication companies that fail to meet quality checks. In May 2012, Nigeria fined four telecom companies a combined $7.4 million (Sh636.4 million) for failing to meet minimum service standards.
In April 2011, the Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Agency (Rura) revoked the license of Rwandatel in April 2011 for poor service and slapped MTN Group a daily fine of $4,000 (Sh344,000) due to substandard services and network failure.
The financial penalty begun on September 14, and was applicable until the South African tech giant fixed the problem.
In Kenya, operators pay a fine of Sh500,000 for breach of the quality of service standards, a penalty that the government says is too lenient and fails to compel the mobile phone companies to comply.
Under the Kenya Information Act, mobile operators face a similar fine for any other breach of the Act such as breach of licence conditions.
Safaricom, the largest operator, had 2.9 million subscribers unregistered out of its 19.6 million subscribers. Airtel had not registered 822,526 out of 4.7 million subscribers.
Orange and Essar had 1,278,193 and 1,131,632 unregistered respectively. Orange has 3,279,509 subscribers while Essar’s Yu has 3,233,234.
Dr Ndemo said the police receive close to 500 cases daily related to mobile phone criminal acts such as kidnapping and extortion for ransom, mobile money con games and fake lottery wins; mostly attributed to prisoners.
Hate messages have also been blamed for fuelling the 2008 post-election violence where subscribers forwarded inflaming texts which went viral.
CCK has already drafter rules to guide bulk political messaging that will see the penalty for persons found guilty of using mobile platforms to threaten, incite, abuse, insult and stir up ethnic hatred face a fine not exceeding Sh1 million or imprisonment for a jail term of not more than three years; or both.
To register SIM cards, subscribers are required to give their full names, physical and postal addresses, date of birth and physical and alternative contacts to the service providers.
Companies and individual subscribers, including minors, are required to register their SIM cards through the names of their shareholders, parents or guardians. Organisations and small businesses will have to provide users with their official numbers and physical location. Parents have to register lines on behalf of their children.
After encountering a legal barrier, Safaricom last year signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Kenya Prisons Service to install mobile phone jamming equipment to block fraudulent calls and M-Pesa transactions in prisons.
The firm’s signal tracking data indicates that most phone-related fraud originates from prisons with 1,500 fraudulent SMS and calls being made from the Kamiti Maximum Security Prison in July 2011 alone.
The prison accounted for 65 per cent of the incidents in that month with the crimes also rife at Nakuru, Meru, Kibos and Shimo la Tewa prisons.
The new regulations spell that the mobile operators bear the legal liability for any acts committed by unregistered SIM card holders who commit crimes and for unlawful or harmful content disseminated by users of those services.
