New SIM registration to require biometric ID starting Dec 15

The new system will be applied to the registration of both new prepaid and postpaid SIM cards, not the existing mobile phone users.
NBTC secretary-general Takorn Tantasith said yesterday that this new registration method would be used across Thailand in all 55,000 locations – mobile phone operators’ customer service shops and the networks of the mobile phone operators’ dealers and partners.
Operators could choose to use either the face recognition verification system or a fingerprint verification system.
Takorn added that the number of new SIM cards sold by all three mobile phone operators Advanced Info Service, True Corp, and Total Access Communication, was around 4.2 million units monthly.
He said that the NBTC on October 31 ordered all mobile phone operators to introduce this new biometric registration system.
The watchdog had already piloted the method in three provinces in the deep South early this year.
Under this new method, new SIM card subscribers will have insert their ID cards into the finger print reader or the face recognition card reader at the registration locations. The card readers are connected to the mobile phones or PC of the registration locations.
In the case of the face recognition system, the locations will take the SIM card users’ face with the mobile phones embedded with an NBTC registration application. Then the app will see if the captured face matches with the face stored in the ID card database.
Under the current method, the registration locations will scan just the ID cards of the SIM card buyers and scan a barcode of the purchased SIM cards.