Mandatory Face Recognition for SIM Card Registration from 1 July 2026

Jakarta, KOMPAS.com - The government, through the Ministry of Communications and Digital (Komdigi), will implement nationwide biometric facial recognition-based SIM card registration starting 1 July 2026.

‘1 July 2026 will be fully enforced nationwide,’ said Edwin Hidayat Abdullah, Director General of the Digital Ecosystem, during a press conference on the Full Implementation of Biometric Registration at the Garuda Spark Innovation Hub in Jakarta on Friday (29 May 2026).

‘For new registrations, the full nationwide implementation will take effect from 1 July 2026 with no more exemptions,’ he added.

‘If any are found, please report them for immediate deactivation,’ he said.

Edwin explained that the biometric registration policy is being implemented to prevent the spread of spam and online fraud.

‘Why is this important? Biometrics is for protection and anti-spam. Indonesia Anti-Scam data shows that up to April, there have been 9.5 trillion in losses with 548 reports,’ he said.

According to Edwin, data breaches must be addressed immediately to protect Indonesian citizens’ identities.

‘This is why we stress that biometrics is not meant to cause inconvenience but to mutually protect and achieve collective progress,’ Edwin added.

Previously, Edwin stated that almost all cybercrime methods, including scam calls, spoofing (using numbers mimicking official entities), smishing (SMS phishing), and social engineering fraud, primarily use phone numbers.

‘Digital fraud losses have exceeded Rp7 trillion. Every month, there are over 30 million scam calls, and each person receives at least one spam call weekly,’ Edwin said in December 2025.

Currently, over 310 million active numbers are in circulation, while Indonesia’s adult population is estimated at around 220 million.

Beyond curbing digital crime, biometric registration for new SIM cards also aims to clean up the mobile number database.