Afcacia

Kenya’s communication regulator is seeking to develop a database that will be a repository for all mobile phone records of firms and persons in a bid to ease verification and retrieval.

The database by the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA), will contain data on SIM card subscribers and will be linked to government databases such as the Registrar of Companies.

The new plan is part of Kenya’s strategy to deal with mobile phone fraudsters and stop usage of SIMs belonging to dead persons by thieves to commit fraud.

The CA says it plans to buy a SIM card registration data dump analysis system that is capable of mapping mobile subscriber numbers with information in government databases.

The system will be link to the database of mobile subscribers held by mobile operators including Safaricom, Airtel Kenya, Telkom Kenya and Jamii Telecom.

“The system will be installed at the CA Centre, and will provide interfaces to integrate with the MNOs’ subscriber registration database, the Integrated Population Registration System (IPRS), Personal Identification Secure Comparison and Evaluation System (PISCES), Registrar of Companies database, the database of dead persons and any other database of relevance,” said CA.

The move to link the database with the Registrar of Companies comes at a time the CA has drafted regulations that propose to compel companies to submit their CR12 certificates to register their company SIM cards.

The move is aimed at giving the telcos and the government details of the beneficial owners and directors of the firms using the lines.
CR12 is the official document that provides details on the shareholding or directorship of a firm.

This comes amid a rush by mobile users to register their SIM cards ahead of the October 15 deadline for SIM registrations set by the CA.

The authority in April extended the deadline for SIM card registration by six months to allow millions of users to comply with the directive that is aimed at weeding out fraudsters and other criminals from the subscriber databases held by the telcos.

Kenya has 64.67million SIM subscriptions, according to CA data.

The CA says the SIM registration drive has already seen some 200,000 SIM cards deactivated after they were found to be registered under wrong identification details.

This is partly because the number of mobile phones connected to mobile networks stands at 59.7 million phones