The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) has issued a final call to people who hold between six and 100 SIM cards to verify their identities at mobile operators' service centres by the deadline of July 13, or they will be blocked from making outgoing calls or sending text messages.
A total of 3,981,251 SIM cards were subject to the requirement, and as of June 30 the holders of 1,635,407 SIM cards have verified their identities.
This leaves more than 2.3 million SIM cardholders to verify their identities by the deadline.
The move is part of NBTC measures to prevent the use of mobile phones to commit crime.
According to Trairat Viriyasirikul, acting secretary-general of the NBTC, the regulator is trying to upgrade identity verification measures and information about service usage by mobile users, passing measures earlier this year.
Under the measures passed on Jan 16, holders of more than five mobile SIM cards must register their identities through mobile operators' service centres or via a mobile app.
The announcement covers two categories of SIM cardholders. The first category covers those who hold between six and 100 cards, who must confirm their identities by July 13.
The second category is those who hold more than 100 SIM cards, who had to verify their identities by Feb 14.
SIM card termination threat
If the cards are suspended, the owners have 30 days to verify their identities, or else their SIM cards will be permanently terminated.
The second group is the regulator's focus, on the assumption that multiple SIM cards may be used to commit fraud. This group was given only 30 days to verify their identities after the NBTC's announcement on Jan 16.
In the second group, 5,078,283 SIM cards were subject to identity verification, but only 3,914,057 SIM cards were verified by the Feb 14 deadline.
More than 1 million SIM cards in this group were suspended.