Australia, India and Malaysia turn to digital ID to stem SIM fraud

Digital IDs tend to be stored on smartphones, so it is little surprise that as authorities consider how to reduce fraud among mobile connections, they are adopting or at least considering using digital identity. The latest examples are in Australia, India and Malysia, but the issue is global.

The U.S. Secret Service discovered and shut down more than 100,000 SIM cards in facilities around the New York tristate area, arranged in SIM servers that could have crashed New York City’s cellular networks, Wired reports. The SIM farms could also be used to carry out impersonation fraud attacks at scale,

Digital ID proposed in Australia

The Australian Communication and Media Authority (ACMA) has proposed enabling telecoms to use government-accredited digital identity services for customer identity verification to activate prepaid mobile services.

Regulations set for prepaid mobile accounts in 2017 require identity verification, but do not recognize digital ID. Supporting their use could cut down on the use of physical documents, and SIM-related fraud.

A public consultation is open until October 21.

Biometric verification in India

India’s Department of Telecommunications has introduced new requirements for telecoms to perform identity verification for some mobile services.

Draft rules (via MediaNama) released September 19 instruct telecom operators to set up a biometric identity verification system (BIVS), either on their own or in collaboration with others. Telecoms would use biometrics to issue subscribers a unique user ID. All biometric data stored by the system would have to be encrypted, and protected in other standard ways, the Department says.

Reverification would be required in certain circumstances.

The regulations also limit SIM connection transfers to blood relatives.

Malaysia’s telecoms unite

Telecoms in Malaysia are planning to stand up a federated identity network to service businesses and cut down on incidents of fraud and identity theft, The Star reports.

The plans were announced during the Digital Nation Summit, and would involve the launch of a Number Verification API that banks and online retailers can integrate to authenticate customers based on their mobile number. Mobile number-based authentication is sometimes performed now through SMS one-time passwords (OTPs), which prove possession rather than identity claims.

CelcomDigi, Maxis, U Mobile, Telekom Malaysia, and YTL Communications are among mobile service providers taking part.

Article Topics

Australia  |  biometrics  |  digital ID  |  identity verification  |  India  |  KYC  |  Malaysia  |  SIM card registration