SOP Issued for Re-Verification of Overseas Pakistanis / Old age and Disabled Individuals
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has finally issued the guidelines for SIM verification of customers who are currently not residing in Pakistan or those who are old / disabled and their thumb impressions are either not available or not recognizable.
Such customers, who are currently living outside Pakistan for work or other purposes, will have to get their SIMs re-verified as all other Pakistani customers, however, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has issued following revised SOPs for Pakistanis living abroad.
According to details, there can be three scenarios for re-verification of SIMs for overseas Pakistanis
SIMs which are present in Pakistan
For those SIMs which are present in Pakistan but their owners reside abroad can get the ownership of these SIMs changed to a blood relation who is in Pakistan.
Such SIMs should be bought to franchise/service centres of respective operator with request for change in ownership.
One additional proof of relationship with the owner shall be seen and recorded by CMOs for reference.
SIMs that are Operating Overseas on International Roaming
Mobile phone operators will prepare a list of numbers that are ACTIVE on intentional roaming. Not to mention, a mobile phone company has record of all SIMs that are active on roaming.
Mobile phone companies will carry-out preliminary verification of the subscriber with Active Roaming services through USSD code or any other technique to assess genuineness of the subscriber.
The verification shall include taking information such as CNIC, mother’s name, place of birth, etc. and verifying the same by taking data from NADRA.
If verification is successful, CNIC number and SIM registered against it shall be tagged as “Temporarily Verified” for BVS Verification till return of CNIC holder to Pakistan.
A deadline of 31st March 2016 shall be fixed for blocking of temporary verified SIMs, if not verified through BVS by that time.
Mobile phone companies are directed to make sure that this facility is only applicable for subscribers operating on international roaming.
This facility (for temporarily verifying roaming customers) is not applicable for SIMs operating in Afghanistan. Pakistani SIMs on roaming in Afghanistan shall be verified through change in ownership or they will get blocked at the end of deadline.
Please note: Customers who have active SIMs on international roaming don’t have to do anything, just they need to make sure that their SIMs are active and switched on.
If you have a SIM that you are carrying abroad and are not using it, then insert it in to the phone so that it may get counted on international roaming. Otherwise it will get blocked at the end of deadline.
SIMs that are Neither in Pakistan nor on International Roaming
If you own a SIM that is not active with intentional roaming (because you probably lost your SIM or if you just don’t use it any more) will get blocked after the deadline, i.e. on April 14th, 2015.
You can get this SIM unblocked after carrying out verification through BVS after your return to Pakistan.
You can reach out to your respective operator to let them know that your SIM is not active on roaming and that they should wait for your return.
Mobile phone companies are asked to wait for one year before they add such blocked numbers to their poll of SIMs that can be re-sold.
Reverification of Old Age / Disabled Individuals
Those customers who are unable to get their fingerprints (because they are too old, or because of a medical situation or because they are disabled) will have to follow these steps to get their SIMs re-verified:
- If the customer asserts genuineness and belong to target group i.e. old age (more than 60 years), disabled from both hands (unable to provide thumb/finger impression) or diseased/allergy (finger prints does not match), he/she shall be directed to provide following additional information as Primary Verification which shall be recorded by CMO and forwarded to NADRA through email / IT application:
- Original CNIC (seen, scanned and retained for life)
- MSISDNs (in use/claimed)
- Secret Questions (Mother’s Name / Place of Birth)
- Once verified, mobile phone company will tag such customers as verified.
- Mobile phone companies will have to keep the record of such customers for every.
- For any misappropriations in verification of such customers, mobile phone company will be held responsible.
At this stage, customer’s input is over — unless asked otherwise through SMS notifications — and rest will be managed by telecom company.
To keep an extra check, a secondary verification of the customer from NADRA will be incorporated to assess the correctness of information based upon following factors:
- The subscriber’s updated biometric information is available with NADRA.
- The subscriber has already been marked imputed by NADRA.
- The status of previous attempts for biometric verification by the CNIC holder i.e. whether the subscriber been verified through BVS earlier?
- Whether age of the subscriber suggests that the biometric information shall not match i.e. more than 60 or otherwise.
- Based on the results of data assessment during Primary and/or Secondary Verification decision shall be made within 5 days.
Possible outcomes:
- If the credentials/data of the subscriber are not verified during Primary Verification then the process shall be stopped.
- If the credentials/data are not verified by NADRA during Secondary Verification or for the individual with allergy/disease then:
- An SMS shall be sent to subscriber to visit NADRA centre for further recourse.
- Once customer updates information, he/she shall then revisit the sale channel of concerned CMO for secondary verification.
- Upon successful verification, all numbers against the tagged customers shall be marked verified and SMSs shall be sent to customer.
- In case customer is verified both during Primary and Secondary verification then the CNIC and MSISDNs provided by the subscriber which are registered against the said CNIC shall be tagged as “re-verified” and SMS shall be sent to all verified MSIDNs as per procedure in vogue.
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