BY HARRIET MUGO
Over 40million sim cards have been registered in the country as at last Saturday, October 15 when the campaign to register all mobile phone SIM cards ended, bringing to a total of 80 per cent of all the mobile line so far been registered.
Communications Authority of Kenya (CAK) Director General (DG) Ezra Chiloba Simiyu said Safaricom Limited has so far registered 93 per cent of the mobile phone SIM cards operating under its brand name while Airtel on its part has registered 81 per cent.
He was addressing the media in Naivasha on Monday on the sidelines of the annual Cyber Security Conference.
By the time of going to the press, Chiloba said he had not received clear data from the third mobile telephony operator; Telkom Kenya limited.
Chiloba said he had tasked the three mobile telephony operators to give a window of up to end of next week to those who have not registered their lines to do before closing them down completely.
He at the same time cautioned wananchi to be careful with their personal documents so that they are not used by fraudsters to register mobile lines for their illegal activities.
He gave an example where many Kenyans are struggling to pay digital loans which fraudsters used their illegally acquired mobile lines to obtain.
“Every line that is not registered will have to be switched off regardless of the owner and we will hold the three operators responsible for any line that will be found operating under their brand name illegally,” Chiloba said
He said it was important to have all the SIM cards registered in order to guarantee security of the users so that their lines are not used by fraudsters for their evil activities.
“We also have to organise our digital data system to help monitor the security of this data. Kenya has made tremendous digital progress in the financial sector and other sectors which need to be protected,” the Director General said.
The two- day conference brings together various stakeholders in the Cyber Security space to discuss various security challenges facing digital sector.
