The Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA) says it is rolling out a system called Central Equipment Identification Registry that will see all handsets being registered against National Identity Cards in a bid to address issues of money fraud.
MACRA Director General, Daudi Suleman made a revelation on Thursday in Lilongwe during digital finance clinic with digital financial Services aimed at finding ways of strengthening security and raise the confidence around digitalization.
Suleman hinted that MACRA will use the Central Equipment Identification Registry to put limitations on the number of sim cards belonging to an individual as a control measure to the digital fraud.
“With the Central Equipment Identification Registry all the handsets will be registered against the National IDs, that will help to limit the number of Sim cards registered per person to just 10” said Suleman
He added “If a fraudster wants to register 100 Sim cards, the system is going to be detecting and reject the move. When detected the system will automatically shut the sim card down and this will help us to limit the opportunities of fraud that is being conducted by these guys that are behind the bars”.
According to Suleman MACRA will soon start an exercise of re-registering Sim cards and handsets against National IDs which will be used as a single source of truth.
He further revealed that every sim card and handset will now be linked to the biometric finger-print.
