The rise of African SIM registration: The emerging dynamics of regulatory change

Abstract

The African experience with mobile telephony has been extolled as a defining moment in the continent's contemporary economic, social, and political development. Yet SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) registration schemes are threatening to throttle the technology's developmental potential. These mandates, which require the registration of identity information to activate a mobile SIM card, are fast becoming universal in Africa, with little to no public debate about the wider social or political effects. Whereas some authors have explored the motivations behind these drives, as well as their potential economic impacts, this paper focuses its critique on the broader diversity of implications of this regulatory transformation. Viewing SIM registration through a lens that combines surveillance studies and information & communication technologies for development, it examines elements of resistance across a range of actors, as well as other emerging effects like access barriers, linkages to financialization, and Africa's budding mobile surveillance society.

Panel Econometric Analysis on Mobile Payment Transactions and Traditional Banks Effort toward Financial Accessibility in Sub-Sahara Africa

“…While recent studies [3,15,39,42] point to the singular role of mobile payment in financial inclusion in the region, the result with coefficient of 0.582 and an R-square of 0.338 indicates that the increase in mobile payment transactions also significantly affect traditional banks number of formal account ownership numbers in the region. Practically, to stimulate growth in the financial sector of a region characterized mostly by rural settlements which limits rapid investments in physical financial infrastructure could benefit from the on-going competition [43]. Further, the increase in mobile payment transactions in the region significantly impacts on the growth in the number of bank branches per 100,000 adults judging from the results with a coefficient of 0.552 and an R-square of 0.305.…”

Left to Other Peoples’ Devices? A Political Economy Perspective on the Big Data Revolution in Development

“…Such concern also reflects anxieties about insecurity and terrorism. Many African governments have now made it mandatory for citizens to register their devices with government (Donovan and Martin, ). Third, proponents advocate greater centralization, arguing that when different data sources are paired together, new insights can be gleaned.…”

Research on Mobile Phone Data in the Global South

“…With SIM card registration in most developing countries (Donovan & Martin, 2014), it is now easy to distinguish between unique subscribers and multiple ones. SIM penetration in Ghana, according to GSMA (2018a), is at 122%, implying multiple SIM subscriptions and not as many subscribers (Sey, 2010).…”