Following an alert by the Ministry of Home Affairs, Tamil Nadu Police has written to telecom service providers to block 55,982 SIM cards allegedly activated with fake identities. Police sources said most of these mobile phone numbers were active in Chennai, followed by cities like Coimbatore, Madurai, Tiruchi and Tirunelveli.
confirming that HinduAdditional Director General of Police, Cyber Crime Wing, Sanjay Kumar on Friday said that strict action is being taken against retailers at 1,102 sales points across Tamil Nadu for failing to comply with Know Your Customer (KYC) norms. , a lapse that resulted in the activation of thousands of SIM cards with fake identities.
The Department of Telecom deployed artificial intelligence and facial recognition-powered solution (ASTR) technology to identify a large number of similar images with different addresses. ASTR is considered a game changer in the industry and next generation platform to detect and remove active SIM cards with fake proof of identity.
crackdown on retailers
Mr. Sanjay Kumar said that the special teams of the Cyber Crime Wing in coordination with the city and district police are activating different mobile phone numbers with the same proof of identity to zero in on SIM card retailers.
For example, 436 mobile phone numbers are active in photo recognition of a person. In another case, a number with the photo of a child has been activated… There are some cases in which 30-40 numbers have been activated with the photo of a person with different names,” the ADGP said.
When asked whether the police would also get information about people using fake identity mobile phone numbers, their antecedents and whether they were involved in any crime, he said that analysis of the profiles of such users would help in this case. Will be part of a wider investigation. Case. He said that while Vodafone Idea had the maximum number of numbers activated with fake credentials, state-owned BSNL had the least.
safety hazards
Police sources said that SIM cards activated with fake identities were a major security threat as such numbers were used in most of the cyber crimes and terror activities. There were two aspects to the activation of fake identity SIM cards. Firstly, the customer or applicant provides a fake proof of identity and secondly the seller facilitates the activation using the proof of identity of others.
Retailers were taking live photographs of the applicants and uploading it in the system before activating the SIM cards of some service providers. A leading service provider had access to the applicants’ Aadhaar database and biometrics, which was sufficient to authenticate their identity and address proof. However, long before these practices came into vogue, a large number of SIM cards were activated through traditional methods, sources said.
The counterfeiters were creating fake documents so precise that it would be difficult for anyone to ascertain their veracity. Similar images with different addresses were easy to locate in a large customer database provided by ATSR service providers.