(Central News Agency reporter Shi Wanqing, Cairo, 19th) Recently, Egypt’s mobile phone numbers have been registered under false names and actual crimes have occurred, which has aroused great concern in the society. Within 7 days, 5 million people logged into the account identity inquiry service. The Egyptian Telecommunications Regulatory Authority has urgently launched countermeasures and requires all phone number holders to go to stores to verify their identities in person by the end of this year.
An Egyptian citizen was recently sentenced to 25 years in prison by a court because his mobile phone number was involved in a drug smuggling case. After the incident was exposed, a large number of people were shocked to realize that their personal information had been fraudulently used to register phone numbers; Egypt's National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA) also began to intervene in the investigation and transferred four Egyptian telecommunications operators (Orange, Vodafone, e& Egypt Etisalat, WE) to the prosecutor for investigation.
According to previous comprehensive reports by Egyptian media, a 19-year-old college student applied for a mobile phone number in his own name at the request of a friend in 2024 and then handed it over to the other party, without further asking how to use the phone number. This phone number was later suspected to be used by a third party for drug crimes. However, the student was recently sentenced to 25 years in prison because he did not attend court without knowing it.
Egyptians have widely discussed the case on social media. Some Egyptian netizens reported that they found that there were more phone numbers in their names that they had never applied for or held.
After the incident spread, Egyptians began to log in to the official "Araqamy" app in large numbers. "My Phone Number" is an official query service within the Egyptian National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority's "My NTRA" app, which can query all phone numbers and e-wallets registered under an individual's national identity card number.
According to a report by Egypt's Al Ahram newspaper on the 17th, within a week after the verdict, the number of users of the "My Phone Number" service surged by 5 million, reaching approximately 12 million.
The report pointed out that compared to Egypt's current population of about 110 million, there are currently as many as 126 million mobile phone users, indicating that many people have more than one phone number.
The report also emphasized that the State Telecommunications Regulatory Bureau has clarified that the legal responsibility for phone number crimes belongs to the actual criminal perpetrator, and will not be found guilty just because the phone number is registered in someone's name. It also called on the public to file a complaint immediately if they find that they have an unusual phone number.
The report further pointed out that in order to curb unhealthy practices, Egypt’s National Telecommunications Regulatory Director Mohamed Shamroukh announced in early August that all four mobile telecommunications operators in Egypt would be transferred to the prosecutor’s office to investigate whether there were violations of registering phone numbers for users without their consent.
Egypt's National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority also requires telecom operators to strictly implement the real-name system for phone numbers and suspends the issuance of large amounts of cards in corporate systems. It also forces phone number holders to go to telecom stores to verify their identities at the counter. This verification operation will be implemented in phases, and it is expected that the identity verification of all phone numbers will be completed by the end of this year.
In addition, the Authority will also accelerate the introduction of biometric verification mechanisms into telecom operators' applications to allow users to more securely verify their identities.
