Tokyo Police push ID verification for data-only SIMs

This sucks and is about as well thought out as a knee-jerk reaction from a politician who knows the internet is in fact not a truck but instead thinks it is a series of tubes.

It will mean the end of cheap data SIMs for visitors, and it's going to take away a large source of revenue during the Tokyo Olympics for scrappy MVNOs like JCI. Maybe the Police haven't considered the olympics and the number of visitors that would need mobile data access, or the have and that scares them.

As I have mentioned numerous times (and why I think an unlocked iPhone could have been a game changer), MVNOs usage is exploding in Japan. The idea that "Japanese people don't even know what a SIM card is" outdated and no longer really applicable. True, there are some that of course do not, but if the Metropolitan Police is making an issue of MVNO SIMs, that means a LOT of people are using them.

Anyway, here is the issue. From the Yomiuri:

通話は従来型の携帯電話、メールやネットはスマホ――携帯電話を使い分ける利用者の増加に伴い、データ通信専用のＳＩＭカードの需要は急増している。

ＳＩＭカードは２００８年、携帯電話不正利用防止法で販売時の本人確認が義務付けられたが、データ通信用カードは当時、「通話機能がないので、犯罪に悪用されるとは想定していなかった」（総務省）として規制対象から外れた。

しかし、スマホ向けの無料通話アプリの登場で、データ通信用カードでも、このアプリをダウンロードすれば通話ができるようになった。

警視庁幹部は「技術の進歩で、データ通信用カードも通常のＳＩＭカードとほぼ同じ機能を持つことになった。早急に本人確認の義務付けが必要だ」と指摘している。

As the number of people who use a traditional feature phone for voice calls and a smartphone for mail and internet increases, so does demand for data-only SIM cards.

In 2008, a law was enacted requiring identification verification for the sale of voice SIMs, but data-only SIMs are exempt because the Ministry of Infrastructure and Communications didn't imagine they could be used for nefarious purposes since they lacked voice capabilities.

However, downloading free smartphone apps allow voice communications with data-only SIM cards.

Therefore, Tokyo Metropolitan Police Chiefs have pointed out that "as technology has evolved, data-only SIM cards now effectively posses the same functions as voice SIMs. It is necessary to immediately begin identification verification for [data-only SIMs]."

On slashdot.jp is the following:

事件では、データ通信用SIMを使ってLINEやカカオトークといったコミュニケーションアプリを利用し、女子高校生を集め売春させたとのこと。

One incident involved the usage of LINE and KakaoTalk to recruit high school girls into prostitution.

As I understand it, when Line detects a "44010" SIM*, it requires you to login to your mydocomo page, which users of MVNOs don't have. This means line can't even be used with an MVNO (of course other services can, though).

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*440 is Japan's Mobile Country Code and 10 is Docomo's Mobile Network Code. So a docomo SIM is often simply referred to by phone geeks as a 44010 SIM. MVNOs using Docomo's network provide 44010 SIMs (which is why they will be locked out of the Docomo iPhone 5S and 5C).