Communication Authority of Kenya says Kenyan mobile operators deactivated 287,214 SIM cards in three months to June 2022 that bore wrong Identification details.
This comes as the deadline for the validation of registration details set for 15th October 2022 nears.
In the ongoing validation exercise, subscribers continue to flag lines registered using their IDs without consent.
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In the latest CAK report released on September 22, the deactivation has led to a decrease in the number of registered SIM cards to 64.7 million from 64.9 million.
“With the deactivation, the active mobile subscriptions declined to 64.7 million in the quarter up from 64.9 million in the preceding period, translating to a mobile (9SIM) penetration of 130.9 per cent,” read part of the report.
Another set of 124,689 SIM cards was registered in the first quarter of 2022, with the communication authority stating the aim of the deactivations is to mitigate the misuse of the cards for fraudulent and criminal intentions.
The report also indicates that there were more than 27 million mobile money users who made transferred money amongst themselves more than a billion times.
“Mobile money subscriptions stood at 37.2 million, representing a penetration level of 75.3 per cent. In the period, there were 1.1 billion person-to-person transfers amounting to KSh. 1.1 trillion. On the other hand, the value of deposits stood at KSh. 1.4 trillion,” stated the report.
CAK also stated that there had been a significant increase in internet users of 2.3 per cent and a decrease in broadband subscriptions.
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“The total number of data/Internet subscriptions went up by 2.3 per cent to reach 47.6 million, whereas the number of broadband subscriptions recorded a slight drop of 0.5 per cent to post 30.1 million,” read the report.
However, these tremendous developments have led to a similar increase in cyber threat incidences.
“There were 92.8 million cyber threat incidences received by the National Kenya Computer Incidence Response Team (National KE-CIRT) during the period, with 1.9 million advisories issued to various targeted stakeholders,” read part of the report.
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