Literally a week is left before the entry into force of the new version of the law "On Communications", which we wrote about in early May. According to the adopted amendments, operators will have the right to block subscribers who have not been identified by specifying passport data. Users of corporate numbers are most at risk - if companies do not transfer registries with data of real subscribers, blocking cannot be avoided. There are no problems for existing legal entities, they have already received the relevant notifications. But for those who use the numbers of companies that have long sunk into oblivion, it will not be good - the block, most likely, cannot be avoided.
As it turned out, those whose contract is drawn up on an old passport also have a risk of losing their number. It changes in the following cases:
- Upon reaching a certain age (20 and 45 years).
- If your passport is lost or damaged.
- When changing the surname or other personal data.
There is a sea of such subscribers, which is shown by the practice of people working in service offices. They visit offices literally every day. And now a serious threat of blocking phone numbers has hung over them. Communication can be interrupted at any moment, including a very important one. As it turned out, the operators' consultants are already calling subscribers and inviting them to update the details of the documents. The same Beeline got down to business quite seriously, issuing warnings. Therefore, from June 1, 2018, you should not be surprised at a suddenly blocked number.
Paper contracts are stored by a limited number of subscribers. Ask the first person you meet - and he will not even remember where the treasured piece of paper lies. The series and number of the passport are not indicated in the personal account. Conclusion - to avoid blocking your phone, you have to act. We have prepared an algorithm for you:
- We are looking for a contract and look at which passport it was issued. You can also remember the approximate date of purchase of the SIM card and estimate whether the passport has changed since then.
- We take the documents and go to the nearest service office - to clarify the addresses, look at the website of your operator or in the mobile application.
- We inform the office specialist about the desire to confirm passport data.
The specialist will check the details and report the results. If the data has changed, it remains to sign a small statement - and that's it. Congratulations, you are not blocked!
There is nothing to congratulate the owners of numbers belonging to already closed organizations. Re-registration of the contract is possible only with the consent of the owner, which in this case is absent. There is also information that from June 1, 2018, only their legal owners will be able to replenish unidentified numbers from their own current accounts. What to do in this situation - the specialists of your operator's service offices will tell.
Back in early May, the website publication wrote that very soon telephone numbers of Russians would be available on the territory of Russia. It was possible to come to this conclusion based on the message of the MTS operator, which warned its corporate clients about the need to urgently provide the passport data of each SIM card holder, because otherwise they would be blocked. Since the law is one, other telecom operators, including MegaFon, Beeline and Tele2, should do the same.
Many were skeptical about such information, but it turned out to be true. The mobile operator "Beeline" began to actively notify thousands of its customers that they must, by June 1, 2018, that is, in the coming days, immediately contact any of the communication stores in Russia to update their passport data. We are talking about those subscribers who did not provide them when they reached 20 / 45 years old, as well as when replacing an old passport with a new one, including when changing their surname and other personal data.
Mass blocking of telephone numbers served by mobile operators MTS, MegaFon, Beeline and Tele2 will begin on June 1, 2018. If a subscriber received a message or a call demanding to come and update passport data, he is obliged to do this on the basis of Federal Law No. 126 “On Communications”, the updated version of which came into force on January 1 of this year. If you ignore such a request, the number will be blocked.
Also, blocking threatens all those who use someone else's phone number, that is, registered not for themselves, but for their wife, friend, acquaintance, or even a stranger. If the mobile operator finds out about this, he is obliged by law to request mandatory identification of the subscriber, and only the person to whom the phone number is registered will be able to pass it. It is obvious that the upcoming mass blocking of numbers will affect millions of Russians.
The easiest way would be to calculate the Russians who did not provide updated passport data when they reached a certain age (20 and 45 years old), because a special algorithm calculates the age of the subscriber and if he did not update the information on his own by contacting the communication salon, he himself will be invited there. The good news is that MTS, MegaFon, Beeline and Tele2 will not block the numbers of individuals without warning. First comes a warning. Repeated ones are also possible if the subscriber begins to delay the identification period and it is important for the telecom operator.
If you received an SMS message or received a call from an employee of the operator, in which they informed you of the need to update your passport data or verify your identity, you should not panic. This procedure takes no more than 5 minutes, and you can go through it in any of the communication salons. You only need to have a passport with you, and also be the person to whom the SIM card is registered. If you know for sure that your passport data is outdated and already invalid, it is better to update it yourself before June 1, so that there are no difficulties later.
Earlier, MTS, MegaFon, Beeline, Tele2 and Yota became known in case no one uses the number for a long time.
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Telecom operators may block services to subscribers who do not confirm their personal data. Previously, there was no regulation according to which subscribers and operators exchanged requests and documents. Now there are rules that explain everything - they will work from November 4, 2017.
And although it is now clear on the papers how to confirm an identity, in practice it is either difficult or impossible to do so at all.
Why operators can block subscribers?
They have such a right under the Communications Act. This rule worked before: operators could block subscribers whose data in the contract did not match the actual ones. There were only no rules according to which operators should request these confirmations, and subscribers should send them.
Officially, the subscriber has 15 days to confirm his data after the request.
What requests are we talking about? Who is interested in the personal data of subscribers?
So far, the law refers to requests from operational and law enforcement agencies. For some of their purposes, they make a request to the operators. Like, let the subscriber confirm that he is the same Ivanov Ivan Ivanovich, to whom the SIM card is issued.
No one knows in advance to whom and for what reason such a request will be sent. This does not mean that the subscriber is a criminal or a terrorist. The operator is obliged to respond to such a request, request data from the subscriber and send a response.
From June 1, 2018, Roskomnadzor will also be able to send such requests to telecom operators. If the agency wants to identify the real owner of the site or the author of the post on the social network, it will do this through a mobile operator.
Why is the contract not enough?
Even if the contract contains subscriber data, the actual owner of the SIM card may be someone else. The operator will want to know who is actually calling or texting from that number.
And if the contract is not concluded, and the SIM card is active, you will have to tell who uses it. This is possible if you use an anonymous SIM card that you bought from the subway or in a shopping center.
Does this only apply to mobile phones?
No, landline too. Your home phone can also be turned off. Another check concerns the services of Internet providers. If the subscriber does not confirm personal data in the contract, he will be left without the Internet, e-mail and instant messengers.
How will subscribers receive a request from the operator?
First, the request will be received by the operator himself. He has three days to ask you for personal information.
Here are the ways you can do it:
- by SMS;
- through automatic dialing;
- by e-mail, if the operator has an address;
- in your personal account.
The operator will send a request and wait for documents from the subscriber.
How to verify personal data?
You need to send a copy of the identity document to the operator. And this should be done not as you want, but according to the rules. Otherwise, the answer will not be counted and the connection will be disconnected.
Here's how you can verify your identity.
Directly from the operator. Any communication salon will not work. Where you can submit documents, you need to check with the operator. You will need the original and personal presence.
Through a personal account on the operator's website. The document must be certified with an enhanced qualified electronic signature. This signature still needs to be obtained in advance - it is paid.
Through public services, if there is an account. It is not yet clear how operators will receive this document. They have not yet integrated into the common system and cannot see the documents that subscribers send through public services. Probably, this issue will somehow be resolved. Until they decide, the method will not work.
And if nothing is sent, what will happen then? I don't want to confirm anything.
If you receive a request, you will have to verify your identity. This is the responsibility of the subscriber according to the rules in the new edition. And this must be done in exactly the ways that are described in the rules, and not in any way. This is also a duty.
The operator's request will indicate the shutdown period. Three days before this date, they will remind you again. Then they will block access to communication services.
I have a sim card for a relative. Can I send a copy of his passport upon request?
No. The essence of the request is for the subscriber to confirm that the contract is drawn up for the person who uses the services. He must verify his identity himself. A copy of the passport of the mother, ex-husband or an unknown person from the Internet will not solve the problem. You cannot send someone else's document to the operator and certify it with your signature.
All data must match: in the contract, documents, personal account, electronic signature. If something does not match, you need to renew the contract for the actual owner.
What if I don't receive a request or can't respond in time? You never know, I'll go on vacation or there is no electronic signature.
There is nothing in the rules about this. Most likely, the operator will wait as long as he can according to the law. And then block services to avoid problems.
But this does not mean that everyone will be required to confirm personal data?
Nobody knows who, when and why they will demand it. Better get ready.
I have a corporate plan. Can't transfer my data?
Soon they can. On June 1, 2018, an amendment to the law on communications in this regard will come into force. If the subscriber is a legal entity or individual entrepreneur, and sim cards are issued to employees, their personal data can be transferred without consent.
What should be done now in order to respond to the request in time and not be left without communication?
Check to whom the SIM card is registered, the contract with the provider and the home phone. Get your documents in order.
Register for public services. Sooner or later, telecom operators will connect to them and the system will work.
Watch for notifications from the operator so as not to miss the request.
Fraudsters can take advantage of the situation to get a copy of your passport or somehow deceive. Keep track of what requests you answer and where you send documents.
Mobile operators use calls or SMS to call customers to the office in order to “update passport data”. Open Media figured out how to respond to this
Operators now for several reasons can immediately ask the subscriber to come to them with a passport as soon as possible.
First, from June 1, amendments to the law "On Communications" come into force, obliging operators to identify the owners of all SIM cards. They were proposed by the Chairman of the Federation Council Valentina Matvienko after the terrorist attack in the St. Petersburg metro in April 2017. Operators are now checking "gray" subscribers - that is, those who purchased a SIM card without presenting a passport. It is not required, for example, by street sellers of SIM cards.
Secondly, Federal Law 115 on Combating Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism also obliges operators to know their customers and counter suspicious transactions.
Finally, law enforcement agencies may request the subscriber's personal data from the operator.
That is, the operator can invite a client with a passport to the office if he has a “gray” sim card, or transactions that seem suspicious were carried out through his account. And also, if law enforcement agencies became interested in his personality.
What happens if you ignore the operator's call?
According to FZ 115, operators can disable commercial services for a subscriber on a mobile phone - mobile banking and confirmation of transactions via sms. There is a warning about this, for example, on the VimpelCom website.
In accordance with the amendments to the law "On Communications", the operator must terminate the service of a subscriber who has not confirmed personal data.
None of the largest market participants told Open Media how long it would take to apply sanctions to subscribers who did not show their passport. But everyone is asking customers to come in "in the coming days."
Judging by the amendments to the law "On Communications", it is better not to postpone the visit. If the operator asks for data at the request of law enforcement or supervisory authorities, the subscriber has 15 days to confirm. Then the operator must turn it off. True, such requests are rare, the representative of MTS reassures. Operators send out most invitations on their own initiative in order to exclude possible problems in advance and not part with customers. The problem is that the subscriber will not be able to find out what explains the call - the request of law enforcement officers or the foresight of the operator. Such information is not provided, you have to go to the office and sort it out, the Beeline hotline employee explained.
Operators do not say what criteria are used to select people who need to confirm the data. Apparently, the options may be different. For example, an employee of Open Media received an SMS from Beeline with a request to come to the office and a link to 115 FZ, who in recent months, while traveling, replenished his subscriber account a couple of times from countries neighboring Russia.
What will be checked when visiting the office?
Last name, first name, patronymic (if any), date of birth, as well as "other data of an identity document."
Operators' employees must verify the data in the contract with the original user's passport, as well as with the data of the Unified Identification and Authentication System (ESIA) and the public services portal.
“If any data is not enough, or they are entered incorrectly, the system sends a notification to the subscriber about the need to update the information,” the Beeline website says.
According to the government decree on the rules for the provision of communication services, if the user's personal data does not match the information in the contract, the operator is obliged to re-inform the subscriber about the timing of the termination of the provision of services - no later than 3 days before the connection is disconnected.
Today it is very difficult to find a person who is not a subscriber of one or another mobile operator. Some, for their convenience, use several options at once. And it is quite natural that companies providing such services use their own capabilities to communicate with their customers. For example, a not entirely clear message may come where Beeline asks to confirm passport data.
What does this SMS mean? How to proceed upon receipt? This can be understood if you carefully read our material.
Is this message a scam?
Today, there are quite a few methods of telephone deception that are used by various intruders to obtain the personal data of ordinary people, withdraw money from their account, and force a citizen to transfer a certain amount somewhere on their own. Therefore, it is not surprising that if an SMS arrives, the content and essence of which are not entirely clear, then the person begins to suspect fraud.
I want to note right away that in this case it is not so. Then what is it?
The fact is that the government of the Russian Federation this year issued a special law that came into force on June 1, 2018. Its essence lies in the fact that a person who purchases a SIM card of any mobile operator must provide his personal data in return. This is done in order to increase the effectiveness of the search for people who commit certain atrocities.
But before the adoption of this law, people had a fairly large number of cards that were not properly registered. Naturally, mobile companies now have to correct this situation. We think that it is now clear why Beeline asks to confirm passport data? Almost always they come to old SIM cards or those that were issued somewhat suspiciously, that is, as they are called, they are “gray”.
Can this message be ignored?
You can ignore such an SMS only in those cases when a person is ready to part with his SIM card. The fact is that if you do not fulfill the requirements from Beeline, then the company within one or two weeks proceeds to the procedure for blocking the SIM card.
A little more time is given only to subscribers who are currently in roaming. They will usually receive this notification when they return to their regular service area. Therefore, they have the opportunity to use the services for a little longer than other people.
You can also ignore it if a person has enough of the period that he is given before the start of the blocking procedure. In other situations, it is better to solve the problem.
What should be done to solve the problem
If the operator requires confirmation of passport data, then his client has two options for possible actions:
Owners of corporate numbers will also need to come to a Beeline representative office convenient for them and provide previously concluded contracts in order to undergo a new identification of their owners.
How to be the owners of "gray" numbers?
The owners of such cards may begin to worry because this problem is allegedly unsolvable for them. This is not so, usually they can be easily reissued to yourself, bypassing even penalties, if you choose the second option from the ones proposed above and explain the situation normally.
But if this is not done, then you will have to say goodbye to them forever.
Feedback from people who received similar SMS messages
Quite a few subscribers of this mobile operator have already received similar SMS messages, so it is very easy to find their reviews in order to read them:
- Anton, Moscow. I am a very old customer of Beeline. Naturally, I purchased the card even before the adoption of this federal law. And I didn't register it with my passport. Of course, I don't want to lose her. It would be nice if only personal contacts, but my whole business rests on it - clients know this particular number and I don’t want to lose them even temporarily. I understand perfectly well that if I am temporarily unavailable, they will simply go to competitors, and it will be very problematic to return back. Therefore, I decided to visit one of the operator's offices and solve the problem. The first one I met on the way turned out to be full of visitors, so I decided to look for another one. Found where there were a few bored employees. He contacted me and explained the nature of my request. The guy literally in a few minutes went into the database and entered the required information. So the problem is solved very quickly and simply. You only need to spend a little of your time.
- Ekaterina, Bryansk. I have a card given to me by my son. He bought me a mobile phone and immediately everything you need for it. As a result, the office denied me the procedure for re-registration. They issued a special questionnaire, which had to be filled out very carefully. There are quite a lot of points on which information had to be searched. For example, which services are activated, where I call most often, the state of my personal account, when exactly the SIM was activated, and so on. Fortunately, all this can be found in your personal account. Found, entered, took the questionnaire back. They said that it would take several days to double-check all the information and they would inform me of the results by phone.
- Olga, St. Petersburg. I had to deal with this problem twice. For the first time I went to their representative office and showed my passport. They looked at something there, corrected it at home, they said that now everything is fine. But several months have passed and a similar SMS comes a second time. Why, if I confirmed everything. I personally decided not to go anywhere, but called the Call Center. I explained the essence of the appeal, everyone looked there and said that it was some kind of mistake - everything is in order with my data and they do not understand why the message was sent again. So it's better to always call their representative than spend personal time visiting an office that is not always located nearby.
- Semyon, Tom. I also faced a similar situation, since my Simka is already about ten years old and I don’t want to change it somehow - I’m used to it, and everyone knows this particular number. I do not live in the city itself, but nearby, so a personal visit for me presents certain difficulties. Fortunately, there is a computer and a normal Internet. Just in the evening I visited the company's Internet resource, took the necessary pictures and sent them to them. True, it turned out only the second time, since initially they did not like the quality - the glare prevented them from viewing all the numbers normally. Photographed and accepted.
- Vladimir, Samara. Naturally, I really did not want the services provided to me to be blocked. Therefore, when I received such a notification, I went to one of the Beeline offices. There's a queue. I sit, I wait. I had to wait about an hour, which was the opportunity to talk with their representative. I applied, showed a notification, I hold out my passport. The young man quickly looked at something on his computer and says that I don’t need to do anything. How so? Why were they sent? It turned out that they were sent to everyone indiscriminately, so it is better to initially contact the Call Center and clarify there before taking any action. Otherwise, you can completely uselessly waste your time, as happened specifically with me.
That is, this problem is solvable. In most cases, everything is done quickly enough, but in some situations it will be necessary to provide additional information. In addition, sometimes such a mailing is received by mistake and, in order to avoid unnecessary gestures, it is recommended to initially call technical support so that everything is finally clarified there.
