SIM REGISTRATION SYSTEM IS ILL-DESIGNED

 

What is the purpose of digitization? What is the purpose of digitalization? What is the purpose of capturing user biometrics? What is the purpose of the SIM registration? There can be so many textbook answers to the questions, but the simple and ultimate goal is for Consumer protection and convenience as well as for Organization efficiency and seamless service delivery.

We have been asked to register our SIM Cards and the touted reason is for our protection against fraudulent activities which is laudable. The registration process, however, has not been without issues because the system design is flawed and seems not to have been developed from the users’ or consumers’ experience perspective. Technology is an enabler but if not well designed can be a burden, costly without achieving the needed benefits to both the Consumer and the Organization. It will bring more inconvenience to the Consumer and a waste of resources to the Organization. This is what I see in the SIM registration system that has been developed.

I intended to share three registration experiences for this conversation on why the SIM registration system is ill designed.

• Experience 1

I am an existing customer of Vodafone with a registered SIM Card. This means, my name, date of birth, and digital address have already been captured. My biometrics, facial, iris, fingerprints have all been captured during the registration of my first SIM Card. Also my Ghana card details have been captured. Vodafone, therefore, to the best of my knowledge has both my biodata and digital data.

 I visited a Vodafone office and I told the sales person I have an existing registered SIM Card and want to buy a new one. I was asked to produce my Ghana Card which I obliged. I was then given the SIM Card after payment and asked to go join a long queue to get my biometric captured to register the SIM Card. I told the sales person that I am an existing customer and have an already registered SIM Card and the response was, I still have to join the queue to get my biometrics recaptured. Honestly, I went berserk but they told me that is the process, One SIM Card, One biometric, and has nothing to do with them. I needed the SIM Card so I went through the process once again.  

• Experience 2

A friend of mine, lost the wallet which had the phone and the Ghana Card, so went to a Vodafone office to get a replacement SIM Card with the same number. The number already has his biodata, biometrics, Ghana Card details linked to it. He was told his biometrics will be recaptured together with the Ghana Card details again. He found it strange but because he needed the SIM Card, he obliged to go through the process. They then asked for the Ghana Card which he said was lost but had the number which could be used to retrieve his existing captured details including his picture to be able to identify him. They said without the actual physical card they cannot do the replacement.

• Experience 3

A friend of mine, an AirtelTigo customer wanted to buy a second SIM Card so went to an AirtelTigo office. She had to go through the whole process of biometric capture with the reason being that the details on her existing SIM Card are not transferable. Same as my experience with Vodafone.

These are the experiences that will keep anyone with a IT knowledge wondering about the quality of the system being used and what went into the design. It is beggars belief, that one will have to go through such experiences in this present day digital world.

DESIGNING IT SYSTEMS

In designing any IT system, there is the need to use a Human Centered Design Approach, to view the outcome from the consumers’ perspective. Two technical system designers, User Experience Designer (UX) and Interface Designer (UI), then come together. First is the User Experience Designer (UX) who understands the requirements of the system from the consumers’ point of view, understands the information architecture, user requirements and expectations. The UX design is based on user researched needs and what the system is supposed to do. How the consumer is supposed to interact with the system? The convenience and reliability to the consumer. The second is the Interface Designer (UI) who understands the requirements of the system from the technical perspective and is usually the graphics designer and software developer who designs the system based on the user needs, requirements and friendliness. Ultimately, the UX Designer, the information architect, must test that the final system developed by the UI Designer, the technical architect, meets the desired outcome.

Both the Business, UX Designers, and Technology, UI Designers, must work together through the Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) from the Planning Stage of requirement gathering, System Analysis and Design, Coding, Implementation and Testing, Deployment and Maintenance.

Most often in designing IT systems we leave the whole system design to the UI Designer, the software developer, that we want for example a biometric SIM registration system or an election collation system. We do not detail exactly the functions of the system and what we want the system to be doing from customer experience stand point, a business decision which is for the UX Designer, the operations person, and not a technology decision for the UI Designer.

THE CURRENT SIM REGISTRATION SYSTEM DESIGN

From my experience and the other experience above, it seems the developer of the SIM registration system being used had no idea of the intended purpose and if they had then the system has been poorly designed. The developer as a User Interface Designer(UI) and the National Communication Authority(NCA) as the User Experience Designer (UX) have failed to design a system that brings efficiency in the SIM registration process to the telecommunication companies (Telcos), convenience of registration to the consumer for all stakeholders to experience the purpose and advantages of digitization and digitalization. It is surprising that the Ministry responsible for Communication a nd Digitalization also approved such a system when both the Telcos and NCA are under their supervision.

I will now be using the three experiences to show the flawed design of the current registration system that has been developed.

• Registering a Second SIM Card

To register another SIM with your existing Telco when you have an existing registered SIM card, your biometrics is recaptured again with the Ghana Card. The telcos are not able to just link the new SIM card to your existing identity. Every new SIM card purchased will require a new biometric capture. One SIM card, One Biometric.

This system as it is operating now, is an inefficient system design that is not helpful to the Telcos, NCA and the Citizens. For the Telcos, the queuing is becoming a nuisance and affecting their non-registration service delivery. NCA, if they are the data controllers, will need more hardware resources to be able to accommodate these multiple data capture since we are being told each person is limited to having ten (10) SIM cards on all networks. I wonder how this can be detected when the system does not seem to be centralised but distributed. Finally, for the citizens, recapturing of the registered user’s biometrics again is superfluous, unnecessary, waste of resources and against the benefits of the digitalization.

There will also be data redundancy. Should I want to update my digital address for example, do I have to change it for each number, SIM Card, separately? What if I change it for one SIM card but forget to do that for my other number with the same Telco? What if I even give a different digital address when registering my second SIM card? Any analysis of SIM card holders for decision making by geographical area will have me living in two places.

• Replacement of lost SIM Card and Ghana Card

To replace a lost SIM card with your existing Telco when your lost SIM card has already been registered, your biometrics is recaptured again with the Ghana Card. The Telcos are not able to just retrieve the existing registered data upon identification, give a new SIM card with the existing number and link it to the already captured biometrics. Every replacement SIM card with the same number in your name will require a new biometric capture.

Once you lose your Ghana card which has already been used to register a SIM card and you lose your SIM Card, to get a replacement SIM card, you will have to wait till you get a new Ghana card from the National Identification Authority. Beggars belief. You can imagine if you have mobile money on the number. This defeats the very purpose and advantages of moving from a manual system to a digitized environment when record retrieval is real time.

The Telco should be able to retrieve your data using the Ghana card number without the physical card since they also captured your facials and you are physically standing in front of them to be identified.

BEST CASE DESIGN

The ideal design for this whole SIM card registration, once Ghana Card, was the only card being used, was for the Telcos to, after taking our biodata to link the number to the card in their system with no need of capturing our biometrics.

The Ghana card already has our biometrics captured so should there be any fraudulent activity by a user, all the Telco has to do is under a court order or a legal procedure disclose to the law enforcement agency the Ghana card to which the number is linked to. It is now up to the law enforcement agency to do their investigations with the National Identification Authority (NIA) for whatever information they need. The Telcos per se do not need our biometrics to deliver their telecommunication services and the capture is against the data protection law and principles as unnecessary.

WORST CASE DESIGN

Once the Telcos are being made to capture our biometrics despite capturing the details of our GHANA Cards, the worst case design is to allow existing registered SIM card holders to buy additional SIMs or replace lost SIMs buy linking them to the already captured data of the consumer.

Does it make sense if you are a customer of a bank with a current account and you want to open a savings account but the bank asks you to bring new passport pictures and that they need to capture you details again.

WAY FORWARD

Of course the current system is able to capture our biometrics and link it to a SIM card. The registration system, however, has to be redesigned as a centralised, online real time system that will allow the Telcos to link multiple SIM cards to the same captured data of the Consumer. In fact, the Telco should be able to use one centralised database with our biometrics captured just once with all them being able to link their SIM cards to our names. This will even make it easy to monitor the maximum of Ten (10) SIM cards per person across all the networks.

 

 

CONCLUSION

Digitalization with respect to public service delivery is to benefit the citizenry by way of a seamless e-government business and Citizen-to Government (C2G) interaction as well as enhancing productivity. This poorly designed SIM registration system for registering a second SIM card or replacing a lost card is stressful, inconvenient, time wasting and unproductive.

Data already captured for a particular person should be transferable to additional SIM being registered by the same person. If this cannot be done then it means the Telcos are not hosting the database in-house and the database is also not centralised, not online to be accessed real time and one wonders who is hosting and storing the biometrics.

We might be investing in this digitization and digitalization agenda but would not reap the intended benefits if we have poorly designed systems as we experiencing with this SIM registration. I hope such ill-designed systems are not cutting across other sectors of the economy.