Saudi Arabia’s Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) has gone ahead and disconnected the mobile subscribers who haven’t registered their fingerprint biometrics.

It’s the conclusion of an initiative first announced last year, with the CITC following the direction of the Ministry of Interior, which aimed to prevent fraud in SIM registration. As the Saudi Gazette reports, the CITC previously having set the registration deadline for July 20th of this year, but evidently allowed some leeway before announcing this Wednesday that all unregistered subscribers would be disconnected the next day.

The initiative appears to be a security effort similar to those that have been undertaken in other countries such as Pakistan and Bangladesh. Ensuring that biometric authentication is used for SIM registration is seen as a means of preventing terrorists and criminals from fraudulently obtaining mobile devices, which can be used in illegal plots.

Saudis who have been disconnected are still able to re-connect their SIMs if they register their biometrics within 90 days, the CITC says.

Source: Saudi Gazette

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August 5, 2016 – by Alex Perala