ONLY live selfies will be accepted for SIM registration instead of stock photos. 

At a recent Senate hearing, National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) Commissioner Ella Blanca Lopez said they issued a memorandum order mandating telcos to roll out within three months technologies that will require live selfies for SIM registration. 

Lopez said the measure was intended to eliminate fraud. 

“We recently issued the Memorandum Order para linisin po natin ‘yung registry because sadly po, may mga nagre-register using fake IDs and ‘yun nga po, the telcos po kasi have no database to match,” she said. 

Since December 2022, Filipinos have been required to register their SIMs in compliance with Republic Act 11934, which seeks to provide law enforcement agencies with the necessary tools to deter crimes committed using SIMs.

Nearly 119 million SIMs had already been registered as of September 3, 2023, according to the NTC.