From policy to practice: why SA’s SIM card regulations fall short
The Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-related Information Act (Rica) requires that SIM cards be traceable so that, if police obtain judicial authorisation, they can link phone calls to a specific individual. This framework is intended to strengthen law enforcement’s capacity to investigate crime while balancing constitutional privacy rights. When properly enforced, it is a powerful tool, but when ignored, Rica becomes meaningless.
High-profile cases repeatedly illustrate how untraceable phones hamper investigations. The trial of suspects accused of killing Bafana Bafana player Senzo Meyiwa showed how a phone call between accused Fisokuhle Ntuli and the victim’s wife, Kelly Khumalo, ahead of the murder, was made from a phone not registered in his name, complicating efforts to definitively link communications to him.
Similarly, in 2025, the Madlanga Commission revealed that suspects implicated in the hit killing of engineer Armand Swart, who was wrongly identified as a whistleblower, had a burner phone in their possession. In many cases, burner phones are discarded before police ever recover them. These cases demonstrate how untraceable SIMs enable criminals to plan and execute crimes while significantly delaying investigations and weakening evidence chains.
It is almost certain that burner phones and untraceable SIM cards are used in many ordinary crimes that never make headlines, making it even harder for police to identify perpetrators or map criminal networks. The true scale of the problem is therefore likely far greater than what is publicly visible.
Yet this outcome should not be a foregone inevitability. SIM cards can be properly registered, regulated and enforced under Rica if there is political will and operational follow-through.
Examples from other countries
Other countries provide instructive examples. Nigeria has linked every SIM card to a verified National Identity Number, barring any SIM not linked to a valid ID or passport from accessing the network. Millions of SIMs have been disconnected to prevent criminals, including fraudsters, from hiding behind anonymous numbers. The Nigerian Communications Commission routinely disconnects unverified SIMs and enforces penalties (on the networks and individual users) for fraudulent registration, making it far harder for criminal syndicates to exploit burner phones or untraceable SIM cards.
The Philippines has taken a similar approach, requiring every SIM, whether new or existing, to be registered with a telecommunications provider using valid government-issued identification. Unregistered SIMs are deactivated, and the law criminalises false registration, punishable by fines or imprisonment, to curb scams, cybercrime and anonymity abuse.
Sweden mandates registration of prepaid SIM cards to prevent anonymous use, although loopholes remain. There is no cap on the number of SIMs a single individual may register, and cases have emerged where one person registers large volumes of SIM cards and distributes them to others.
In the United Arab Emirates, all SIM cards must be tied to a verified identity. Tourists register using their passports and visas, and their SIM cards expire when their visit ends. Operators also limit the number of SIMs issued per person to prevent abuse.
By contrast, South Africa has no effective limit on how many SIM cards are distributed each year. Hundreds of millions of SIM cards circulate nationally, with more than 150-million added annually, far exceeding the population. This makes it easy for criminals to use a SIM once or twice in planning a crime and then discard it with little risk of traceability.
Biometrics
South Africa can learn from international examples by moving decisively to control SIM distribution, mandate tamperproof packaging and eliminate untraceable SIM cards. Linking SIM registration to biometric verification would make false identities far harder to use. Biometrics are already increasingly deployed in South Africa and have been proposed for the rollout of social grants to prevent fraud, demonstrating that the technology and capability exist.
Tamper-proof packaging that conceals the SIM’s unique identifying numbers until activation would prevent bulk registration under false identities. At present, distributors are incentivised to sell as many SIMs as possible and bulk register cards because they can access identifying numbers that should be covered by proper packaging. These illegally registered SIM cards are given fake names such as “Mickey Mouse” or “UglyBetty123. A simple solution is that tamperproof packaging needs to be used to cover identifying numbers so that SIM cards can’t be easily bulk registered by third party distributors. If the package is damaged, consumers know to request another SIM card.
A reasonable cap on the number of SIM cards per individual would close a loophole widely exploited by criminal networks.
Together, these measures would sharply reduce anonymity, strengthen criminal investigations, and ensure that mobile connectivity supports public safety rather than organised crime. Visible and consistent enforcement of Rica obligations by retailers and telecommunications operators would restore the law’s credibility.
In short, if the government and mobile operators chose to meaningfully address the prevalence of untraceable SIM cards, it could be done. There is no technical barrier but an enforcement gap.
The year 2026 does not have to mark yet another cycle of media reports describing Rica as an unenforced, ineffective law and untraceable SIM cards as a quiet enabler of South Africa’s crime epidemic. International examples show clearly that it does not have to be this way,