President Duterte vetoes SIM card registration bill
The SIM card and social media registration bill was vetoed by President Duterte citing concerns about freedom of speech and data privacy.
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| Duterte says no to SIM card registration bill |
Duterte cites concern about the social media registration part of the bill
As a recap, Senate Bill No.2395/House Bill No. 5793 aims to fight disinformation, trolling, terrorism, text scams, bank fraud, and more. However, President Duterte cited concerns about freedom of speech and data privacy.
The proposed legislation would have compelled PH telco companies to require everyone interested in purchasing and using a SIM card to first register their name before the card could be enabled. Those who already have a SIM card must register their names with the respective telecom companies within 180 days. If they do not comply, their SIM card will be deactivated. The bill also added to require real names and phone numbers when creating a social media account.
The bill itself has many positives like fighting disinformation, anonymous online defamation, trolling, libel, and hate speech.
The President's main issue with the bill is that earlier the Senate bill only dealt with SIM card registration. The social media part of the bill was "not duly defined, discussed, or threshed out" in the bill he was asked to sign earlier.
In addition, certain aspects of state authority over the regulation of the social media part of the bill were also not clearly hashed out and explained.
The bill will have penalties for breach of data privacy laws. For one, there is a PHP 200K penalty if there is information about a subscriber leaked by a telco firm, employee, agent, or reseller. Information from the SIM card registration is also supposed to be confidential and will only be provided with the subscriber's written consent.
What do you guys think?
Source: Rappler
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