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New Delhi: The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) last week issued new guidelines to telcos to provide another option to conduct the eKYC process for issuing new SIM cards. Last month DoT has asked telcos to discontinue the Aadhaar-based eKYC process for issuing new mobile connections to subscribers after the Supreme Court barred telcos from using Aadhaar as a mode for digital verification in September.

According to a report in the Economic Times, consumers can get a SIM card in roughly a day using the new process. The latest digital process as suggested by DoT involves the following steps according to the report:

1- Consumers have to visit a telco's retail outlet with identity proof and address proofs.

2- The telco has to take a live photograph of the customer which is to be embedded in the customer acquisition form (CAF)

3- Telco's system shall put watermark with the CAF number, GPS coordinates, retail outlet's name, unique code along with date, time stamped on the photograph

4- Photograph of original identity, address proof to be taken, watermarked by the service provider as well

5- All mandatory fields in CAF form to be filled up, ID proofs that have QR code to be scanned to prevent manual filling up of form

6-Customer can also submit his masked-Aadhaar card (which does not disclose the Aadhaar number of the customer) for eKYC purpose. His personal details like name, gender can be auto-populated by scanning the QR code on Aadhaar card.

7- An one-time password (OTP) will be sent to customer's alternate mobile number

8- A successful validation od OTP will be treated as customer's signature on CAF

9- The outlet will also have to provide a declaration of capturing the live photo via an OTP as well.

10-Following the completion of the above steps, the customer will be given the transaction ID for further reference

11- Telcos need to verify if photographs of ID, address proof match those entered in CAF at the retail outlet

12-Photograph of the customer needs to match with the one in Identity proof documents

13-SIM card will be activated after telco has completed verifications and then done a tele-verification. For tele-verification, another option is through use of 5-digit OTP pin if an alternate phone number has been provided by the customer

14- Telcos are allowed to sell only 2 connections per day for a particular ID and address proof.

15- The above verification process will also apply to outstation and foreigners as well.