Re-electionist senator Richard J. Gordon has urged the House of Representatives to expedite the passage of a counterpart measure mandating SIM card registration. He is, however, unaware of the fact that the lower chamber has already passed its version of the bill way ahead of the Senate.
Sen. Leila M. de Lima is against Sec. 5 of Senate Bill 2395, which requires telcos to forward the registration information of users to a centralized database accessible by both the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) and Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT).
Aside from the mandatory SIM card registration, Senate Bill 2395 also mandates social media account providers to require users to register their real names and phone numbers before the creation of their social media accounts.
The National Privacy Commission said the mandatory SIM card registration will only succeed under a framework of guaranteed privacy protection for mobile users.
Civil society groups, however, have opposed the proposed legislation as a knee-jerk reaction that could also create a bigger security problem once the database of SIM cards is breached.
The Foundation for Media Alternatives (FMA) issued the paper noticing that efforts to establish a mandatory SIM card registration appeared to be gaining steam in Congress.
