Government to Impose Rp1,000 Fee on SIM Card Registration

Government to Impose Rp1,000 Fee on SIM Card Registration for NIK Verification
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The Indonesian government has announced a new policy that requires a fee of IDR 1,000 to be imposed on the registration of both prepaid and postpaid SIM card for the verification of National Identification Numbers (NIK).

This rule of sim card registration is contained in Government Regulation No. 10/2023 on Types and Tariffs of Non-Tax State Revenues Applicable to the Ministry of Home Affairs.

According to Article 4 of the regulation, telecommunication operators are one of the sectors subject to a fee for every access to data from the Directorate General of Population and Civil Registration (Dukcapil).

This regulation will take effect on March 28, 2023, or 30 days after its promulgation on February 27, 2023. The government will charge telecommunication operators a tariff of IDR 1,000 per NIK for every activity related to identity verification based on the population data through the web.

It means that for every registration attempt by a prospective prepaid/postpaid customer, the telecommunication operator must bear a cost of IDR 1,000. If the customer fails in the registration process, the burden on the operator will increase.

However, in accordance with Article 4 of the regulation, the operator is only obliged to pay 50 percent (IDR 500) for the first two years after this regulation takes effect.

Referring to the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology Regulation No. 5/2021 on Telecommunication Services, telecommunication providers must validate or match the identity of prospective customers with the population data owned by the government agency in charge of population affairs, in this case, Dukcapil.

Reportedly, until July 2021, telecommunication companies accessed NIK data in the Dukcapil Directorate General’s database as many as 2.6 billion times.

Not only that, but the Directorate General of Civil Registration also recorded that mobile operators were among the top 10 companies accessing data during that period.

The discourse regarding the imposition of a fee for accessing NIK data in the population database has been circulating for one to two years. Dukcapil had previously stated that one of the purposes of levying the fee was for server maintenance.