Indonesia rolling out biometric SIM card registration in 2026

Indonesia will introduce face biometrics for SIM card registration in 2026 to curb digital fraud by ensuring mobile numbers can only be activated by verified users.

The country’s Ministry of Communication and Digital announced the new system will begin trials on 1 January 2026, allowing new customers to register either with their National Identification Number (NIK) or through facial biometric verification.

From 1 July 2026, biometric verification will become mandatory for all new SIM registrations. The policy is being implemented in partnership with the Indonesian Telecommunications Providers Association (ATSI).

It follows an October trial conducted in collaboration with Telkomsel. A central feature of the trial was ISO 30107-compliant liveness detection to confirm registrants are real, living individuals rather than static images, deepfakes or video recordings.

Director General of Digital Ecosystems Edwin Hidayat Abdullah said mobile numbers remain the main entry point for cybercriminals conducting scam calls, spoofing, smishing and social‑engineering attacks.

“Every year there are around 300 million more scam calls, and the average Indonesian who has a mobile phone receives a scam message at least once a week,” the director general said, as reported by Voi. If we don’t manage this, this is not just a problem of small fraud, but it harms the whole economy.”

He cited more than 30 million scam calls each month and national losses exceeding Rp7 trillion (US$407 million) as evidence of the challenge. Facial recognition, he said, will close loopholes that allow criminals to misuse borrowed or stolen identity data under the previous NIK‑based registration system.

Authorities also expect the biometric requirement to help operators clean up inactive or suspicious numbers. Indonesia currently has more than 310 million mobile numbers in circulation, which far exceeds its adult population, while the Indonesia Anti‑Scam Center has recorded more than 380,000 fraudulent accounts and losses of Rp4.8 trillion ($279 million) as of late 2025.

The new regulation updates earlier rules issued in 2021, replacing document‑based registration with biometric verification designed to prevent identity misuse and ensure that SIM cards are tied to legitimate, uniquely authenticated users.

According to Voi, Pratama Persadha, cybersecurity expert and chair of the Communication and Information System Security Research Center (CISSReC) recommended oversight to safeguard biometric data. He suggested establishing a Personal Data Protection (PDP) supervisory agency.

Fellow Southeast Asian country Thailand has also implemented biometrics with the method seen as a way to tackle rising fraud and scam schemes associated with SIM registration.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  face biometrics  |  identity verification  |  Indonesia  |  Nomor Induk Kependudukan (NIK)  |  SIM card registration