PTA has changed the process of issuing mobile phone SIMs in Pakistan

PTA has changed the process of issuing mobile phone SIMs in Pakistan. 

The Process of issuing Mobile Phones SIMs has been changed. 

To prevent forgery and fraud across Pakistan, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has changed the process of issuing mobile phone SIMs in collaboration with the National Databases Registration Authority (NADRA) and mobile companies. According to the statement issued by the PTA, fingerprints of those who wish to get a mobile SIM will be verified not as before but under an automatic system across the country. 

Until now, mobile SIMs operators used to instruct the user to place a particular finger on the machine and the machine would authorize the user after verifying that finger. However, now the mobile SIM’s operator will not give any instructions to the user, but the user himself or herself will place each finger on the machine and the machine will automatically identify a specific finger and qualify the user for the SIM. Under this method, the machine will scan the fingers of both the user's hands and after verifying both the thumbs and fingers, the user will be eligible for the SIM. Under the new mechanism, there will be no role of the mobile SIM operator or anyone else. If the machine has difficulty scanning a user's fingers or the user's fingerprints cannot be verified, the SIM card will not be issued to the user. 

The above procedure has been developed by PTA with the support of NADRA and mobile service providers and is being considered the best procedure so far. NADRA, along with PTAs and mobile service providers, hopes that the above procedure will prevent forgery or fraud in the issuance of mobile SIMs. The new system is named Multi-Finger Biometric Verification System, (MBVS) while the system implemented earlier was called Biometric Verification System, (BVS). The aforementioned new procedure for issuing SIM cards was inaugurated on December 23-2023 and was immediately implemented across the country.