New Delhi: The Central government has issued new guidelines to curb the risk of SIM switch frauds and related cybercrimes.
Department of Telecommunications’ (DoT) has directed telecom companies to cease SMS facility (incoming and outgoing) during the SIM exchange or upgradation process.
The new rule will ensure SMS services to be stopped for 24 hours after the activation of new SIM cards.
The DoT has given telecom companies — Jio, Vodafone-Idea, Airtel — 15 days to enforce the change.
On receiving a request to change SIM card or number, the telecom companies will have to send an alert of the request to the customer. The SIM card holder will then be required to substantiate that he/she did actually apply for the particular service, through an IVRS call.
The new authentication process will ensure that the request is not a fraud demand.
