Consumer Advocacy Centre Advocates Review of SIM Card Registration

The President of the Consumer Advocacy Centre, Ghana (CAC), Professor Goski Alabi, has called on the government to advocate the review of the SIM card registration and introduce an intervention to secure consumers� information in the country. She said it had been noted that people used the SIM card registration as an opportunity to retrieve consumers� personal information to engage in criminal activities, which leads most of the consumers into trouble. Professor Alabi said this at a special forum organised by the CAC to mark its 2014 World Consumer Rights Day in Accra. The World Consumer Day is an annual event celebrated to educate and sensitise the consumers to their basic rights and responsibilities and the 2014 World Consumer Rights Day had the theme: �Fix Our Phone Rights!� Research conducted In her address, Professor Alabi said the theme for the celebration was reflective of the general talking points concerning mobile phone services in Ghana. She said the CAC embarked on a definitive research in October to put the radar on mobile phone services. This study, she said, secured consumers� information from mobile phone hackers and phone cloning in the country. According to her, it was noted that retailers used the opportunity of pre-registering SIM cards to engage in criminal activities. She explained that when the NCA issued a directive to the public to register their SIM cards before they could be used, some retailers took advantage of the directive by using people�s personal information to commit fraud. This fragrant abuse of NCA�s directive, she said, had rendered the intention of the registration a disaster and had also consigned the consumer to grave insecurity. Already registered SIM cards Professor Alabi entreated consumers to desist from buying already registered SIM cards from retailers at the roadside in order to secure information from others accessing it. She also called on the Ministry of Trade and Industry to assist in approving the consumer protection policy before Parliament to automatically protect consumers. Responding to the challenges, Mr Zormelo said the ministry had put in place a specific intervention on behalf of the mobile phone consumer to ensure they had the exclusive right to their own information. He, therefore, entreated the general public to demand their right to have access to their personal information based on the policy initiated.