Jakarta, domclub Indonesia
—
The Ministry of Communication and Digital (Komdigi) said the initial implementation of registration
SIM card
based
biometrics
Facial recognition starts on January 1, 2026.
This announcement was made in a talk show entitled “The Threat of Digital Crime and the Urgency of Mobile Customer Registration Based on Biometric Face Recognition” which was held by Komdigi together with the Indonesian Telecommunications Providers Association (ATSI) in Jakarta, Wednesday (17/12).
ATSI Executive Director Marwan O. Baasir said all cellular operators (opsel) were ready to implement this new policy.
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On January 1, said Marwan, the SIM card registration system will still run with a hybrid system.This means that prospective new customers can choose two methods, namely using the Population Identification Number (NIK) and Family Card Number (NoKK) as has been done so far, or using population data in the form of NIK and facial biometric verification.
Full implementation of SIM card registration with facial verification will only take effect on July 1, 2026.
“This only applies to new customers, while old customers no longer need to register,” said Marwan in his statement, Wednesday (17/12).
This transition policy is said to be in line with previous information regarding the 1 year transition period for SIM card registration using facial recognition.
Director General of the Komdigi Digital Ecosystem, Edwin Hidayat Abdullah, said that the presence of this rule aims to help operators clean the database of inactive numbers.The reason is, more than 310 million cellular numbers are in circulation, even though Indonesia’s adult population is around 220 million.
“So the operators’ cellular frequency signals can be used by people who are truly loyal customers and not used by digital crime perpetrators,” explained Edwin.
Until September 2025, the number of validated cellular customers will reach more than 332 million.However, the Indonesia Anti Scam Center (IASC) report noted that 383,626 accounts were reported as fraudulent accounts with total losses to the public reaching IDR 4.8 trillion.
Edwin emphasized that almost all modes of cyber crime, such as scam calls, spoofing, smishing, and social engineering fraud, use cellular numbers as the main tool.
“The losses from digital fraud have reached more than IDR 7 trillion. In fact, every month there are more than 30 million scam calls and everyone receives at least one spam call once a week,” said Edwin.
“This is what made Komdigi create a SIM Card registration policy using facial recognition,” he added.
Data security
On this occasion, Marwan also emphasized the data security commitment of cellular operators.
“In the last three years, this data leak did not come from cellular operators because we were always upgrading all systems down to the data center. Operators have been running AI since 2021,” he claimed.
It is also ensured that the facial recognition technology that will be used has gone through careful consideration to overcome challenges in the AI era.
The implementation of this new mechanism also collaborates with the Directorate General of Population and Civil Registration (Dukcapil) of the Ministry of Home Affairs.This collaboration between Komdigi and Dukcapil provides the right to access and utilize population data for services within the Directorate General of Digital Ecosystems.
The Director General of Dukcapil, Ministry of Home Affairs, Teguh Setyabudi, stated that his institution was ready to support Komdigi and ATSI in supervision.
“We are open to discussing solutions if there are problems in monitoring population data in this digital ecosystem,” he said.
(lum/mic)
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