He worked for Emtel as Chief Executive Officer for nearly three decades and he knows how enough about data and data protection. Against the backdrop of mounting national concern about the possible risk that the mandatory re-registration of our SIM cards represents for our data, we approached Shyam Roy for some clarification.

There is a big polemic currently raging over the re-registration of SIM cards which, having been involved in the phone industry for a couple of decades you must have followed. Where do you stand in relation to that?

I am personally very annoyed about having to go through re-re-re- registration of SIM cards AGAIN and I believe many users are feeling the same. This exercise has been done several times already. When someone buys a connection, one has to register with all the necessary documentation: national identity card, proof of address etc.

But operators have made the process easier by introducing on-line registration. Isn’t that a good move?

It is an improvement from before but what about those customers who are not IT savvy? Would they have to walk to a showroom again? Also, while re-registering online, I noted a comment that says, “This information is pushed to the government system for verification”. I wonder which system and how the confidentiality of data will be protected.

Is there a real danger for our data?

Honestly, I can say that we have a very competent person leading the Data Protection institution today who knows very well what must be done. However, regretfully, I think that institution has not been provided with all the necessary tools and resources to make it work better. Unless this is done soon, I do have a big worry about all our data. Compliance to Data Protection should be a regular audit feature. Just having an Act on its own is not enough.

Don’t the authorities already have our data? What is new?

I believe the authorities have all our data. For example, when we are in and out of the country, they have all the data about dates of travel destinations. Are these being used efficiently? Not sure! I know of cases when people stopped getting their pensions because the relevant government department wrongly assumed they were out of the country for over six months! This could have been checked easily with data from the Immigration Office and avoided unnecessary inconvenience to senior citizens. For a supposedly Digital Country, this is abhorrent. I sincerely think we are 10 years behind Singapore in technology and digitalisation.

According to the authorities, this registration is necessary to stop drug dealers and other criminals from using cards registered to dead people, tourists and foreign workers no longer in Mauritius. Is that not a good enough reason to get people to re-register their data?

It should not be at all difficult to detect if a SIM card is registered in the name of dead people, tourists or foreign workers no longer in Mauritius. The government already have data on all these. How many falsely registered SIM cards are there? 20,000? 50,000?? Then why annoy and frustrate the rest of the 2,4 million SIM owners unnecessarily?

Will re-registration stop drug traffickers from being connected, though?

No. There are many means of communications that can be used and it seems that everywhere in the world, drug lords are more advanced in technology than government institutions. Besides, most customers have more than one SIM card. That’s why the number of SIM card holders exceeds by far the adult population figure. Someone can easily have more than one SIM if he has a postpaid and a prepaid phone, a tablet, a mobile router, SIMs that are used on camera and alarm systems etc. We should also think ahead about what to do in the future with the introduction of 5G, 6G when we start using more IOT [Internet of Things – Ed] gadgets and more e-SIMs.

The authorities are saying that the decision to get every mobile phone user to re-register their SIM card is that the Lam Shan Leen report on drugs clearly stated that drug traffickers use SIM cards registered in the name of others to carry on with their dirty business. Is that not a convincing reason to introduce this measure?

The report on drugs was circulated in 2018. We are in 2023! If the recommendations are being implemented five years later, what does that tell you about the drug control effectiveness?

So if it’s not for drug control, why do you think this re-registration of data is being carried out?

The only other thing I can think of is the forthcoming general election. The power of social media is well acknowledged around the world, particularly in periods of elections. It is most probably much more cost effective and efficient to message users directly than use traditional campaigns. Nothing is impossible!

Do you think there is any other way than the proposed registration to put an end to the misuse of SIM cards?

Of course, there are always several other ways of doing something! But I will let those who are paid to use their brains find out on their own…