Safaricom’s wildly popular M-PESA mobile money service regularly makes headlines in global news and spawned a lot of analysis of its developmental benefits, how it helps small entrepreneurs run their business and provides payment services for the unbanked. There is no doubt that this initiated a gradual transition from a cash-based society to electronic money, and that it triggered a lot of creativity and innovation.
Unfortunately, in an unintended side effect, this does not only apply to legitimate entrepreneurs: Recently, kidnapping for ransom has gradually increased in criminal popularity in Kenya, and the kidnappers are just as open to the use of new technology as everyone else: It regularly happens that ransom payments are demanded, and paid, by mobile money. And as much as the explosive growth in mobile telecommunications is generally regarded as an important factor in driving economic development, the mobile phone has also been used for threats, blackmail, lottery scams and other illegitimate activities.
To reign in such crime, Kenya followed the example of South Africa, Tanzania, Botswana and Cameroon and made SIM card registration compulsory: The Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK), implementing a presidential directive from July 2009, now requires all SIM card holders to register their SIM card with the respective service provider by 30 July 2010. Subscribers need to submit phone number, name, date of birth, gender, both postal and physical address, and the ID number of the identification document used to register. Minors will need an adult to register for them, and the minor will be specified as the user of the SIM card. This also applies to new SIM card purchases.
Administrative Headache?
With only a month to register, will this turn into an administrative headache? Well, yes – but it could be worse: Kenya has an estimated 20m mobile subscribers, but not all of them actually require registration. Anyone on a post-paid connection or anyone with a mobile money account had to submit all the necessary details already. Safaricom, with around 80% of the market, has the largest number to register, but a large percentage of those also have an M-PESA account and are therefore already covered as these data are compulsory information under the ‘Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements of financial services. At the same time, Safaricom also has by far the most extensive agent and customer centre network, which helps the process.
To register, subscribers have to have formal identification, which is not necessarily a given with every subscriber, and it makes the process more difficult for e.g. those in remote areas or with limited literacy.
Perspectives: Worth the Hassle?
Registering all their subscribers adds to network operator’s operational costs: More staff for data processing, paperwork, data base expansion, and a slowdown in retail sales as registering customers takes longer than just handing over the SIM card package in return for cash.
But even if the anticipated cost increases have not been so high that it provoked an enraged outcry from the operators, is it really worth it? The jury is still out:
To start with, how useful are the data collected going to be in a year? Or two years? The laudable intention is to keep the data base accurate. But will anyone check the accuracy of the data in six months, or a year? Unless CCK mandates – or mobile companies voluntarily undertake – regular updates of the subscriber data, the database will gradually lose accuracy and usefulness. And the use of fake documents cannot be ruled out.
SIM card registration can undoubtedly act as a deterrent and weed out the more opportunistic criminals, but as long as it is still possible to use a borrowed or stolen phone or SIM card for such transactions, registration alone will not put a stop to them. And even if criminals can potentially be tracked down – is that actually going to happen? The Kenyan police force regularly shows up in pole position of the most-corrupt-institution rankings, and many people who ever tried to get police help with a traffic accident or a break-in are familiar with the police’s requests to be picked up because they either have no car, or no fuel. Unless the police become both significantly less corrupt and significantly more competent, the administrative exercise of SIM card registration alone will have limited impact.
Finally, the legal framework that regulates if and how mobile companies have to disclose subscriber data is still being developed. And data protection is an issue that will trigger suspicion in many Kenyan subscribers: Like Ethiopia, Kenya’s government found out quickly that the mobile phone is a powerful political instrument. In the contested 2007 elections and their aftermath, text messages spread both vital information and incendiary messages – enough to alarm the government that issued explicit warnings, alongside a much-criticised ban on live broadcasts. With this in mind, many Kenyans will wonder whether there is a political angle to being able to identify the sender of text messages, too.
|
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Show/Hide comment form
