Every Pakistani should check SIMs Registered against his/her CNIC

PTA has recently launched a simple service to check number of SIMs registered against your CNIC. It’s advisable for every Pakistani to use it at least once because thanks to the connection resellers and other small businesses, your CNIC may have been used for others and your own number may not be in your own name. Interesting enough, I found five Mobilink SIMs registered on my name though I have none of those. I’ve an additional Telenor SIM that was not registered on my name. A colleague Raheel had thirteen SIMs on his name (may be enough for the Marriot attacking team). This is dangerous since legally you own the SIM and will be responsible for any criminal activity done via this SIM. So, I suggest everyone should check it using the simple SMS service.

How to Use the Service

From Web

Click here (http://pta.gov.pk/668/) to open the web site of 668 service from PTA. It will open the following web page, where you may enter your CNIC in a field provided and press the Submit button to get required information. Please note that you have to enter your full CNIC with no gap or hyphen (like 6110160645683). Obviously, it’s free of cost.

Using Mobile Phone SMS

It’s simple: just type your CNIC and send it to 668 and it will send you in reply the number of SIM for every operator.

Write 3749127299334 and send it to 668.

You will get a reply with number of connections issued against this CNIC for 6 companies (Mobilink, Warid, Zong, Telenor, SCO and Ufone).

Service won’t tell you cell numbers, instead it will actually tell you count of numbers – for instance, Mobilink 3,    Ufone 3,    Telenor 2,    SCO 0,    Warid 0    Total 8.

Cost of Consuming SMS Service

Initially, it’s set to Rs. 2 + Tax and it’s worth its cost.

What to do for those unwanted SIMs Registered on Your Name

PTA recommends to contact the service provider for correction. Most of the telecom professionals are recommending to go to the service center of the network that has those SIMs and ask them to block those SIMs (since legally you own them).

Service Quality

Though the service is very useful the quality of service is not excellent and many users have reported delayed response or no response at all, some others got response on retry.

Related Links

Check ownership of your (SIM) Mobile Connection