(TAP) - State Secretary of the Digital Economy, Habib Debbabi said mobile operators are unaware of the identity of users of around 10,000 SIM cards, compared to the 600,000 in 2012.
Debbabi was speaking Monday at a hearing organised by the Security and Defense Committee at the House of People's Representatives (HPR).
Minister of Communication Technologies and Digital Economy Anouar Maârouf said the maximum number of SIMs for each citizen has been set at 5 in order to allow the authorities to control the 15 million SIM cards used by Tunisians and to identify their owners in case of suspicion.
The minister also recalled that the three operators (Tunisie Telecom, Orange and Ooredoo) operating in Tunisia were asked to secure the fixed and mobile telephone networks, specifying that the Ministry is working to create a unique identifier for each citizen.
The hearing was organised to look at the statistics published by the Ministry of the Interior according to which 600 terrorists were recruited through the internet, said president of the committee Abdellatif Mekki.
The war against terrorists is now an intelligence war, he said, stressing the importance of the role of the Ministry of Communication Technologies in supporting the efforts of the security apparatuses in terms of intelligence.
© Tunis-Afrique Presse 2017
