Prepay cards will only be bought with the bulletin, or the passport, in Romania, the Government today adopting an emergency ordinance that requires the sale only in this way by mobile phone operators. The emergency ordinance stipulates that the sale of prepaid cards only with the bulletin will be imposed from January 1, 2020 for all mobile operators in Romania, they being obliged to provide the data collected now.
I told you the other day that mobile phone operators in Romania already have databases with information about prepaid card users, and they will be obliged to provide them to the authorities starting on January 1, 2020. This information was collected, according to ANCOM, thanks to some promotions that were organized by them, and their existence will greatly facilitate the identification of people who call the emergency service.
OFFICIAL! Prepay cards ONLY purchased with BULETIN in Romania
It doesn't matter if the purchase is made by a natural or legal person, the purchase of prepaid cards requires providing the identification information of the entity that does this. The emergency ordinance also comes with another amendment, more precisely, current prepaid card holders must disclose their identity to operators by September 1, 2020, so that they can be identified based on the phone number they use.
"This obligation enters into force on January 1, 2020, and starting from September 1, 2020, it is prohibited to provide telephone services to the public at mobile points for which payment is made in advance through SIM cards whose end users have not identification data available to the supplier. So from September 1, 2020, it will no longer be possible to sell a SIM card without presenting the user's identification documents. As for users who already have PrePay, including those who purchase a card until December 31, 2019, they will have 8 months at their disposal, i.e. until September 1, 2020, to submit their identification data."
All people who do NOT decline their identity to mobile phone operators until September 1, 2020 will NOT be able to use mobile phone services based on the cards they have in their phones. This provision is normal in the context where the obligation to buy prepaid cards only with the bulletin obliges people to buy their services by revealing their identity, those who already have them having to do the same.
I am quite sure that there are many Romanians who do not want to reveal their identity to mobile phone operators because they have prepaid cards with a well-thought-out objective, but they will remain without phones.
