JEDDAH — The decision by the Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) to fingerprint all mobile phone users has reduced the number of subscribers by about three million, a CITC report has revealed. In a quarterly report, CITC said the number of mobile phone subscribers has come down to 51 million from 54 million in 2011. It attributed the drop to the new measures to fingerprint all subscribers as a security measure. The deadline for fingerprint registration for mobile phone subscribers of all service providers in the Kingdom expired on July 20 (Shawwal 15). The mobile phone connections of all types of subscribers, including post-paid and pre-paid ones, who failed to register their fingerprints and update data were disconnected as no more extension of grace period was given. Earlier, CITC had extended the deadline for fingerprint registration for both post-paid and pre-paid customers. The CITC's decision was announced last September, but its implementation was delayed because some mobile service providers in the Kingdom required time to obtain fingerprint registration devices from abroad. The decision was based on the Ministry of Interior's request to ensure that the information of SIM cardholders are protected. It was also aimed at preventing people from obtaining mobile phones with fake or stolen identification cards. Fingerprint data will be shared with the Kingdom's National Information Center to confirm the identity of the buyer who purchases a SIM card. The CITC report said the number of people using Internet services in the Kingdom increased by 41 percent in 2010 and by 70 percent in 2014. It said that about 22 million people are now using the Internet.
