Announced yesterday by the country’s Ministry of Information Industry, the plan targets all of the estimated 200 million cellphone users in the country who use prepaid phone cards.
China has an estimated 240 million total cellphone users.
Mobile customers in China who use a monthly-billing service have been required to register their phones since the service became available in the country, but prepaid users have until now been able to keep their identities out of the government’s hands.
According to officials at the MII, the loophole has enabled many users of prepaid cards to use their phone for illegal purposes, including the mobile transmission of pornographic content, which is highly illegal in China.
Prepaid users will have until around them middle of next year to register their phones.
“It's unfair if we require only new mobile phone users to register and ignore existing customers,” Chen Yuping, a senior official at the China Academy of Telecommunication Research, told the Xinhua news service. “Current prepaid users will be required to go to the mobile operators' outlets with their identity cards to register.”
By requiring registration from all users, Yuping said the country could more effectively eliminate SMS spam, financial frauds, pornography and “improper political commentary.”
