MTN's SIM re-registration raises concerns========================= The ongoing MTN SIM registration exercise is rising concerns about the safety of its subscribers' data and its motive.

The ongoing MTN SIM registration exercise is raising concerns about the safety of its subscribers’ data and its motive. Some subscribers and industry players have alleged that the operators and NCC might have lost the data base from that exercise. They said the recent re-registration being carried out by the operators, most especially by the biggest player MTN, is a pointer to that fact. The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) had, in 2013, ordered all telecoms operators in the country to register their subscribers’ SIM cards. The NCC spent N6.2billion on the exercise. More than 100 million subscribers were registered at the time. The exercise ended in June 2013, but SIM card registration was allowed to continue at the points of purchase. Three years on, the operators, especially MTN, are now asking Nigerians to re-register their SIMs again. This has made some analysts and observers to begin to ask questions as to what had happened to the initial exercise. But MTN told Daily Trust that their records and documents on SIM registration are intact. “Our subscribers’ data are intact; we are only updating their records with us,” MTN’s regional enterprise solutions manager (north), Auwal Abdullahi, told our reporter in Abuja. He said, “What we are doing now is data reviewing exercise. From time to time, all operators are expected to do this. We didn’t lose any data; they are intact. They are only needed to be updated.” However, some subscribers lamented the frequent demands by the MTN to re-register their details or be disconnected. Chief Leke Adeolu, a Lagos- based telecom engineer, said the NCC and MTN should be investigated by the authorities on how they managed subscribers’ data. “The whole thing should be investigated. How many times do they want to take our data and finger prints? I don’t understand. Do operators in the advanced economy do this?” asked Adeolu. Kabir Olaiya, an MTN subscriber in Abuja, who told our reporter he had registered his SIM about four times since last year, said the fresh registration should be questioned. He suspected that MTN might have lost the previously taken data and that is why they are doing it all over again. Ilya Usman, 27, an MTN subscriber, said he had done his registration in December, 2015, only for him to receive another request from MTN to go for another registration in January. Juliet Lanre, 35, said she was disconnected in January, 2016 by the MTN after she had done the registration last year. The NCC has fined MTN $3.9billion (about N780billion), for failing to register about 5 million subscribers in the first exercise. A senior NCC official also told our reporter that the new exercise affected only some subscribers who did not do their registration properly three years ago. “I do not believe that any subscriber’s data records has been lost. It is just a verification exercise and registration for those who might have got their SIMs after the first exercise,” the NCC official who pleaded anonymity told Daily Trust.