Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) authorities on Wednesday warned the subscribers about a latest kind of fraud in registering mobile phone SIM cards biometrically.

 

They said that some retailers are registering mobile phone SIM cards without the subscribers’ knowledge by taking their fingerprints more than once during registration process.

 

The telecom regulator asked subscribers to be aware of this latest kind of fraud.

 

BTRC Director General (System and Services) Brig Gen Md Emdad ul Bari disclosed this on Wednesday at an event to introduce a code, ‘2872’, that mobile phone users can call to lodge complaints regarding any issue related to biometric registration.

 

Bari said, “The retailers are trying to cheat subscribers while registering SIMs. In one incident at Ashulia last month a retailer registered a number of SIMs with a subscriber’s fingerprint without his knowledge.”

 

“The retailer had taken the subscriber’s fingerprint several times, saying they were not matching. Such fraud had taken place earlier too but was untraceable. The new system is letting us catch them easily.”

 

He said, “A subscriber needs to be alert. He or she must verify the numbers being registered with his or her fingerprints.”

 

Until Wednesday morning, 97 million subscribers of all the mobile phone operators had registered their SIMs with biometric details.

 

The BTRC is also set to introduce a new system from June that will help subscribers verify the number of SIMs under his or her name, Emdad ul Bari said.

 

Biometric registration of new SIMs and re-registration of the old ones were made mandatory from Dec 16 last year.

 

The exercise will continue until the last hour of May 31. All unregistered connections after the deadline will be deactivated without notice.