Hong Kong proposes criminal penalties for misuse of registered SIM cards
Hong Kong's government plans to cut the number of pre-paid SIM cards each person can register per telecoms provider from 10 to 3, and will criminalise certain improper uses of registered cards. The move aims to curb fraud, with carriers having blocked over 18,000 scam numbers by end of September.
Hong Kong's Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development, Edward Yau, told the Legislative Council on 11 November that the government will propose lowering the maximum number of pre-paid SIM cards an individual can register with each telecoms provider from 10 to 3. The measure is designed to reduce the misuse of registered phone cards for scams, following the full implementation of mandatory real-name registration for phone smart cards in February 2023.
Yau said that by the end of September, telecoms operators had blocked more than 18,000 local and non-local phone numbers suspected of being used for fraud, based on police records. The government's data analysis shows that about 98 per cent of individual users already register no more than three pre-paid cards per operator, so the reduction is expected to have little impact on the vast majority of users while curbing abuse by criminals.
To further combat improper use of registered phone smart cards, the government will propose criminalising certain behaviours, such as providing personal information for the registration of another person's phone card without lawful authority or a reasonable excuse. Yau said the government is actively drafting the relevant legal details and plans to consult the public and industry in the coming months.
Lawmaker Chu Li-wah of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong suggested that the limit should be set per person rather than per operator, arguing that three cards per operator still leaves room for abuse. Yau responded that many other countries and economies also set a limit of three cards per operator, and that the government must balance the operating environment and the actual needs of citizens, but will study the matter in depth during the consultation period.