(Tony Sifert, Headline USA) South Africa is considering requiring citizens to permanently link their biometric data to the SIM cards of their smartphones, according to BusinessTech.
Ostensibly intended to “curb the hijacking of assigned subscriber mobile numbers,” the change will require all South Africans to upload scans of their faces, fingerprints, palms, and retinas to their SIM card in order for their phones to be activated.
An amendment to the Electronic Communications Act would requires that “on activation of a mobile number on its network, a licensee must ensure that it collects and link the biometric data of the subscriber to the number.”
“A licensee must ensure that, at all times, it has the current biometric data of an assigned mobile number,” the amendment continued.
The data can only be used “for the sole purpose of authentication of a user assigned a mobile number.” At least, that’s the official line.
The amendment has been proposed by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa, which is “the official regulator of the South African communications, broadcasting and postal services sectors.”
A software engineer told BusinessTech that incidents of “SIM-swap fraud” had been show to have increased by over 90% in a November 2021 report.
“The most important thing to recognise is that SIM swaps have a very important part to play in the mobile network industry [which] sits at the centre of an extended ecosystem and impacts many other sectors, not least of all the financial ones,” Lincoln Naicker said.
News that Apple, Inc. is planning to introduce a “subscription service” for hardware products like the iPhone suggests that the turn to biometric data to prevent fraud could soon go global.
“The idea is to make the process of buying an iPhone or iPad on par with paying for iCloud storage or an Apple Music subscription each month,” Bloomberg reported.
“Apple is planning to let customers subscribe to hardware with the same Apple ID and App Store account they use to buy apps and subscribe to services today.”
