A Kenyan residing in the UK has moved to court seeking to stop a directive by the Communication Authority of Kenya requiring mobile services operators to register their customers afresh.
In a petition certified as urgent by the High Court, Eliud Karanja Matindi says the directive by CA requiring Safaricom, Airtel, and Telkom Kenya to carry out fresh registration of all their mobile telephone subscribers, including subscribers who are already registered, is illegal.
The activist said the directive might force the telcos to suspend the services of any of their subscribers who will not have registered their mobile tele.
Authority Director-General Ezra Chiloba said that mobile phone subscribers who fail to register their SIM cards by April 15, 2022, with respective telecommunication service providers face fines of up to 300,000 shillings or serve a jail term of six months or both.
There has been a push and pull between the Authority and telecommunications service provider since 2015.
They have sought an extension of the deadline for the sim-card registration on numerous occasions.
The mandatory SIM registration is being implemented in the wake of growing incidents of fraud involving mobile phones.