Shanghai Communications Administration is now requiring mobile phone owners in the city to have their numbers registered, or be subjected to restricted services.
All Shanghai residents, local and foreign, must abide because unregistered phones will not be able to carry out basic functions, such as sending text messages and making and accepting local and international phone calls, reported Shanghai Daily.
Being a financial hub, mobile phones in the city are apparently indispensable. According to the administration, there are some 10 million phone users in Shanghai as of June this year.
Local users will either receive a call or a text message informing them about the registration process.
Foreigners are instructed to contact the service provider of their phones for details on where to register. They must bring their phone and their passport when they register.
Acquiring phones would also require presentation of one’s ID.
These phone-related regulations are not exclusive in Shanghai. They are also being implemented in other major cities.
Mobile phone registration is not anymore new in the country. In Sept. 2013, a similar policy was carried out, according to Beijing Relocation.
SFGate reported that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology also applied in Sept. 2010 a regulation that required all those getting a phone to present an ID upon purchase and have the gadget registered under their real names.
From some 671 million mobile phone users in 2010, the numbers reached the billionth mark in 2013. There are now approximately 1.2 billion users in the country as of June 2015, according to online statistics portal Statista.
It is intended that with phone numbers being registered, instances of fraud could be lessened, if not totally prevented. People would also be discouraged to send spam messages.