SIM registration hits a snag
The trial run of the biometric registration of SIMs has hit a snag as mobile operators are finding it difficult to access the national identity database of the Election Commission.
The government has asked the mobile operators to reregister SIMs through the biometric system by March 2016. New connections have to be registered through the system from December 16.
Since the trial run began on November 15, operators have witnessed poor connection to the database almost all the time, officials said.
The EC server was totally inaccessible for three days since November 20, they said.
But, the EC said the problems might have taken place on the mobile operators' side.
On Monday, the Association of Mobile Telecom Operators of Bangladesh informed Tarana Halim, the state minister for telecom, of their problems.
“We need uninterrupted access to the database,” said Mahmud Hossain, chief corporate affairs officer of Grameenphone.
Most of the fingerprints did not match those in the database despite repeated attempts, the operators said. In some cases, customers had to use four different fingers of two hands to get a proper reading, a senior official of an operator said. Repeated attempts increase the cost of the operators, as they have to pay Tk 2 for every single access to the national database, officials said.
Mobile operators said they will have to spend around Tk 500 crore on the project.
“We are facing some problems, but we are working on identifying them. We should have the verification process up and running by December 16,” said Ekram Kabir, a vice president of Robi. As of September, there are some 13.14 crore active SIMs in Bangladesh.
However, Brigadier General Sultanuzzaman Md Saleh Uddin, director general of the national identity registration wing of the EC, said there is no problem with the national database's server. “Maybe there is a misunderstanding about the process somewhere,” he said.
The operators can send scans of each customer's four fingers to the EC for verification at a time to reduce the costs, Saleh Uddin said. “It will cost them more if they send scans of four fingers separately.”
Saleh Uddin said he will talk to the mobile operators at his office today.
Pilot programmes may yield different results, but these will certainly help in taking corrective measures after the official launch of the biometric registration process, he said.
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