Govt mulls limiting M'sians to 2 prepaid SIM cards per person from each telco

PARLIAMENT | The government is planning to limit the registration of prepaid SIM cards for individual Malaysians to a maximum of two from each telecommunications company (telco), said Deputy Communications Minister Teo Nie Ching in Parliament today.

Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil previously said that Malaysia has 12 licensed telcos operating throughout the country, meaning the limit would be 24 prepaid SIM cards per person.

According to Teo, the 2017 Prepaid User Registration Guideline allows individual Malaysians to register a maximum of five prepaid SIM cards under each telco company, which will soon be revised by early next year. 

“MCMC is pursuing a public enquiry to suggest that each Malaysian citizen be limited to a maximum of two prepaid SIM cards for each telco. If they are foreigners, then they are only allowed to register for a maximum of two prepaid SIM cards overall. 

“We hope that with efforts to regulate and improve the guidelines on this matter, we can curb the misuse of these prepaid SIM cards to register social media accounts that are used for fraud, deception, threats, and so forth,” she said in Parliament today.

Teo also added that the public enquiry will be ongoing until the end of November, and hopes for the new regulations to be implemented within the first quarter of 2026.

Last week, the ministry also announced that the public inquiry regarding the proposed mandatory standards for the registration of prepaid public cellular service users would be conducted under Sections 55 and 61 of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998, aiming to ensure transparency, inclusivity, and accountability.

The proposed mandatory standard will replace the 2017 Prepaid User Registration Guidelines and enhance the integrity of the registration process through a new secure mechanism utilising multi-factor authentication.

Under the new rules, MCMC will also have enforcement powers not only over service providers but also distributors involved in registering prepaid end users.

Reporting by Dania Kamal Aryf, Qistina Nadia Dzulqarnain, Hariz Mohd, Shakira Buang

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