ID required to purchase SIM cards from today

　 ID required to purchase SIM cards from today

More mobile phone news, and this time it"s of the frustrating variety.

From today onwards, anyone purchasing a pre-paid mobile phone SIM card will have to provide identification. That includes foreigners, who will be required to present their passports or some other form of ID. The policy is an attempt to curb the number of spam text messages we receive, which we can actually appreciate...we"re pretty sick of hearing from "Xiao Bing", 21, who has beautiful legs and no morals.

According to this article, those already using unregistered pre-paid SIMs are asked to voluntarily register with their identification as soon as possible. Don"t all 320 million of you rush at once.

News-stands are also officially banned from selling SIM cards until they"ve been taught how to register you properly, although we predict that there"ll be a healthy black market for unregistered SIMs soon enough.

So if you don"t fancy having a mobile phone number that"s traceable to your real name, make sure you don"t lose your phone.