Consumer data is being used by telecommunications brokers to register phoney prepaid cards.
MCMC slaps telcos with 430 penalties!
By the end of 2021, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has levied 430 fines totaling RM20.53 million to telecommunications businesses. For failing to verify the identities of new prepaid card customers, the telcos were penalised.
Telecom agents were detected utilising consumers’ personal information to register bogus prepaid cards, which were then sold to other users, according to MCMC. Until a telco or law enforcement agency comes to check, victims have no way of knowing that their data has been used to register a prepaid card.
To combat the misuse of mobile phone prepaid cards, MCMC has lowered the number of prepaid SIM cards that can be registered per person from a maximum of 10 to a maximum of 5. Every user registering a new prepaid card must present their MyKad for identification verification.
There are 1.5 million mobile phone numbers that do not match MyKad’s information, of which 1,008,765 have been terminated, 496,212 have been updated, and 12,058 are in the process of changing their information.
