Kampala, March 27^th, 2018; Uganda Communication Commission Executive Director Godfrey Mutabazi has issued fresh guidelines for SIM card acquisition in Uganda, giving private telecommunication service operators overall powers to obtain biometrics data and facial recognition of SIM card owners without any data breach safeguards.

According to a letter signed by Eng. Godfrey Mutabazi, any person who loses a SIM card and wishes to replace it, that person must among other things surrender his/her biometrics data and photograph to the telecom service provider before SIM card replacement.

“As the Commission concludes the process of implementation of the Application Programming Interface (API) with the National Identity Registration Authority (NIRA) to ensure verification and validation of SIM card registration information, please be advised that SIM cards can only be replaced after producing a valid police report, letter from NIRA, re-registering with Telecom operator using biometrics and photograph among others,” reads the part of the letter

Early this year, some Ugandans had their phones hacked and conned millions of shillings but unfortunately UCC could not assist them because the commission lacks the technical capacity to prevent data breaches and yet it continues to further expose citizens’ data illegally.