Cyprus is advancing legislation to eliminate anonymous prepaid mobile telephone cards, requiring all users to be identified or face service cancellation by 3 November 2025, citing state security and serious crime prevention as justification.
The regulations are progressing before the plenary session of Parliament and are expected to be approved imminently, despite previous disagreements expressed over time.
Currently, 417,631 prepaid mobile telephone cards remain in use across Cyprus. Approximately half of these belong to customers of CYTA, which has progressed further than other companies on identification matters.
Over 417,000 prepaid cards currently in use across Cyprus
During discussions before the Parliamentary Transport Committee, members expressed the need to intensify efforts by all involved parties to identify holders and users, specifically taking into account the compliance deadline.
According to the committee’s report, the proposed regulations are issued under Article 10(2) of the Law on Identification of Holders and/or Users of Subscriber Identity Module SIM and/or eSIM Cards for Prepaid Mobile Telephony Services.
The purpose of the proposed regulations is to determine procedures for identifying holders and users of prepaid mobile telephony services by mobile telephony service providers and authorised provider representatives.
Specifically, according to the explanatory report accompanying the regulations, the proposed arrangements aim to enhance public security and facilitate the investigation of serious criminal offences, whilst ensuring compliance with fundamental principles of personal data processing.
Data protection commissioner secures privacy safeguards
The Personal Data Protection Commissioner, both orally and in writing, submitted a note to the committee recommending the addition to Annex A of the regulations of a provision stipulating that providers or authorised provider representatives will not take or keep photocopies of identification documents, such as identity cards or passports.
The representative of the Commissioner of Communications agreed with the addition of this provision.
Meanwhile, committee members expressed reservations regarding the proposed provision in the regulations according to which a holder making a statutory declaration for notification of details of a minor user is not required to be the parent or guardian of that person.
Parliament committee addresses concerns over minors’ data
The committee, taking into account the recommendations and reservations expressed on the proposed regulations, decided, with the agreement of the competent authorities, to make specific amendments to the text of the regulations in order to:
- Add the provision proposed by the Personal Data Protection Commissioner mentioned above to Annex A of the regulations, and
- Require that the holder making a statutory declaration for notification of details of a minor user be the parent or guardian or a person authorised by the director of Social Welfare Services.
The report states that, based on the above, the Parliamentary Transport, Communications and Works Committee, having considered everything put before it and having made the necessary legal and technical corrections and improvements to the finalised text of the regulations, reserved the right to comment on the regulations during their discussion before the plenary session of the House.
