Unregistered SIM card owners to be fined Ksh.300,000 or 6-month jail sentence

Owners of SIM cards which would not have been registered by the respective service providers will be fined Ksh.300,000 or face a 6-month jail sentence.

This is according to the Communications Authority of Kenya (CK) Director-General Ezra Chiloba has warned who said the move is aimed at curbing cybercrimes that have grown to a record high in the country.

Chiloba set April 15, 2022, as the registration deadline.

“There would be no extension so those still dragging their feet should wake up to the reality and register with their respective telecom service providers or face permanent deactivation,” said Chiloba.

Mobile network operators have been tasked to speed up the data cleanup exercise and deactivation of all unregistered and improperly registered SIM cards.

The mandatory SIM registration is being implemented in the wake of growing incidents of fraud involving mobile phones.

“We want before the end of April all the networks to be cleaned up by deactivating all unregistered and improperly registered SIM cards from the networks,” added Chiloba.

Those with cards dating ten years back are being urged to visit their service providers for an update.

“There is no need to protect consumers and the general public from criminal elements who exploit the void in SIM registration. Many people have fallen prey to fraudsters,” CA said in a statement.

The data clean-up exercise in 2012 saw 80 percent of SIM cards registered with six million that had not been properly documented blocked.

Communications Authority accused some operators of negligence because of contradictory interests.

According to the data from CA, about 59 million mobile phone devices were connected to mobile networks in the country.