«Subscriber unavailable»: cellular companies can block 7 million SIM-cards

Alexander Dybin

The requirement to clearly identify the user of the SIM card has been in the law for a long time, but Roskomnadzor began to show activity only now. According to the Vedomosti newspaper, the RCN sends notifications to mobile operators with packages of numbers whose owners need to be clarified. Each package has 50,000 subscribers. After receiving such a «letter of happiness», the operator must request data from the subscriber. This happens via Push notifications. The user has 15 days to enter their data. This can be done through Public Services, the operator's application or in the communication salon. If the subscriber does not «open his face», the number will be blocked.

According to various estimates, the requirement may affect from 1 to 7 million active subscribers. Who should expect greetings from Roskomnadzor? There are two categories in the risk zone: owners of corporate SIM cards, as well as those who have purchased anonymous cards, they are sold in the markets or distributed for free at the subway without any registration. Some users took the «left» SIM cards consciously and now have to get out of the twilight. And someone, more often pensioners, may not even suspect that they use a number with an incomplete set of data. Blocking can be an unpleasant surprise for them.

As reported to «Novye Izvestia» in the company «Megafon», work on deanon users has been going on since 2018.

«We inform customers about the need to update their data in order to avoid disconnecting services, » the company said, «in accordance with the law On Communications, the operator cannot provide communication services to subscribers with unconfirmed personal data. Subscribers have been informed continuously since June 1, 2018. You can confirm the data with your passport in the salon or by other means specified in the notification. MegaFon uses various information channels, for example, a call from an operator, SMS, push notifications in the application».

According to the company, if the client's data is correct, then no notification is received. If you are not asked to provide additional data, then you should not be afraid of blocking.

«If the number was issued to another person who is unavailable or an organization that has ceased to exist, then it is possible to renew the contract unilaterally. At the same time, it will be necessary to go through special procedures, according to which the client needs to provide justification that he is really the owner of the number», — Megafon said.

They confirmed that they are also checking unnamed subscribers in Tele2.

«We inform customers as widely as possible about the need to verify data: via SMS, notifications in the personal account or push notification. We have tried to make this procedure as simple as possible, including providing a method of remote verification», — the operator said.

Industry analyst Alexey Boyko, author of the ABloud62 Telegram channel, noted another category of communication service users who may suddenly lose their number — these are owners of various devices that need SIM cards to work.

«One of the problems for subscribers is SIM cards used in various telematics devices, from modems and routers to M2M devices: gate openers, barriers, smart home systems, etc., » the expert says. — It is clear that no matter how much you send SMS and push notifications to SIM cards in such devices, their owner will not know about it. And, at some point, he will suddenly encounter the fact that the SIM card is disabled. The righteous anger of the subscriber will not be directed at Roskomnadzor, and the mobile operator. Updating the data of SIM card users in Russia also carries other dangers for subscribers. First of all, the possibilities of collecting data about users will increase due to the aggregation of data associated with various user SIM cards. We can assume the risk of an increase in the leakage of personal data. The estimate of the total number of SIM cards with irrelevant personal data in Russia is about 6-7 million. In August, the RCN may demand to block up to 1 million such cards, in which case operators may face the loss of tens to hundreds of millions of rubles of lost profits».