At least 21 lakh SIM cards have been activated using fake proof of identity or proof of address documents, according to analysis carried out by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). In an alert sent to Bharti Airtel, MTNL, BSNL, Reliance Jio, and Vodafone Idea, the DoT provided a list of suspicious subscribers and called for an urgent re-verification of their documents, and disconnection of those found to be bogus.
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A fresh pan-India analysis of 114 crore mobile phone connections by the DoT’s Artificial Intelligence & Digital Intelligence Unit (AI&DIU) has shown that invalid, non-existent, fake, or forged documents were used to support applications to activate at least 21 lakh SIM issued by various telecom service providers. A majority of these numbers are suspected to be in use for committing various types of cyber crimes or online frauds.
