SIM registration is not a time-bound exercise as we sometimes make it look like; it is an ongoing unending process. Everyone who buys a SIM card is still required by law to register using any of the five legally mandated ID cards – passport, driver license, voter ID, National Health Insurance card or the National Identification Card (Ghana card). The Ghanaian attitude of waiting till the last minute to rush and fulfil their civic duties, make long-term processes look like they are short-term time-bound exercises. It was the same with mobile number portability – some thought it was some exercise that people needed to participate within a certain space of time or miss out, but MNP is here to stay and it is still ongoing; and so is SIM registration. SIM registration is now backed by law, and would be ongoing until a new law is enactto change or abolish it. To that extent, it is still relevant to raise issues about it and point to the possibility of taking a second look at aspects of it, particularly the ID requirements, verification and the type of information collected. For the purposes SIM registration was implemented, one cannot deny that it is a necessary evil. Even though one would want to buy a SIM today and be able to use it in a matter of seconds, one cannot also ignore the security and criminal implications of not being able to identify who owns what SIM. The several SIM-based criminal activities like SIM Box fraud, people using anonymous phone numbers to threaten and blackmail others through calls and text messages, and several other such anti-social SIM-based behaviours, are real. The National Communication Authority (NCA) has even argued that with over 21 million mobile phone subscriptions in an estimated population of 24 million in Ghana, SIM registration promises to generate ‘the biggest and authentic’ databases in the country. That is highly debatable, as this article would show. The kind of IDs the law requires for SIM registration, and the ID verification process have led to the anxiety among subscribers, banter between telecom operators and the regulator (NCA), been a reason some civil society organisations threatened court action against telecom operators and the NCA, and could be a reason some subscribers may eventually take some telecom operators to court. What is it about the ID requirement and verification that is causing so much hullabaloo, and why are the positions so entrenched on the question of making or not making adjustments; after all, the law is made for man, and not man for the law. Ghana’s SIM Registration Regulation, LI 2006, 2011 requires all telecom operators to register all SIMs in phones, modems, tablets and other devices, and allow for verification before activating them for subscribers. The regulation only gives life to the Section 97 of the Electronic Communication Act, Act 775, which mandate the Minister of Communication to ensure that all telecom service providers keep records of their subscribers. The argument has never been about whether or not, the particulars of subscribers should be kept by operators – because that is something the operators already do for their post-paid, mobile money and other groups of subscribers; the issues has been with what type of ID is valid for registration. And that argument can be taken further to what type of information should telcos extract from subscribers, particularly when the SIM registration is intended to, among others things, stem crime. IDENTITY CARDS The law is clear on the types of IDs that nationals, foreigners and corporate bodies can use to register SIMs. For nationals it is limited to any of five IDs – passport, driver’s license, voter ID, National ID or National Health Insurance card. For foreigners, it is limited to passport or ‘other travel document’ (not specified); and for corporate organisations, they are limited to certificate of incorporation. In other words if you are Ghanaian and you don’t have a passport, you don’t drive, you don’t vote, you do not use national health insurance and your National ID is not ready, just like is the case for an overwhekming majority of Ghanaians, you cannot own an active SIM card, unless someone registers a SIM in his or her name for you to use. Even when someone registers a SIM for you, the law requires that person to provide your particulars, including any of the mandated valid IDs, to the service provider in writing within a week of giving that SIM to you, then you also write to the operator saying that SIM is now yours and provide the ID to re-register it in your name. That is very funny because what then is the point in someone registering a SIM in his or name for another person who does not have any of the valid IDs? In any case, of all the valid ID’s the only one legally mandatory for all people living in Ghana to have is the National ID, which is still not available to majority of Ghanaians and residents.