The government has officially made SIM card registration with facial biometric verification mandatory for people who want to activate new mobile numbers starting today, Wednesday, as an effort to strengthen customer identity validation and improve the security of telecommunications services.
The obligation to register SIM cards with facial biometric recognition is regulated in the Regulation of the Minister of Communication and Digital Number 7 of 2026 concerning Registration of Telecommunication Service Customers via Cellular Mobile Networks.
"Telecommunications Service Providers are required to use the Know Your Customer Principle to carry out registration," reads Article 2 paragraph (1) of the regulation.
The regulation stipulates that telecommunications service providers are required to implement the Know Your Customer principle in customer registration.
One of the applications of the KYC principle for the new SIM card registration process is through the addition of facial verification using biometric technology, in addition to preparing the customer number used and population data in the form of a Population Identification Number.
