Solution · Telecommunications & Government
National SIM Registry.
A national registry that binds every SIM, device and subscriber to a verified, biometrically de-duplicated identity across participating operators — for the full life of the SIM, under audited and legally governed access.
The national mandate
Registration is only the start. A national programme must establish who is accountable for every active connection, maintain that truth as people, SIMs and devices change, and make the system governable without turning it into an uncontrolled surveillance database.
Security and lawful attribution
Link each active SIM to a verified person or accountable organisation, with evidence and access controls designed around the legal framework of the country.
Market integrity and revenue protection
Give regulators a dependable national view for SIM-box and bypass investigations, operator reporting, channel assurance and fair market oversight.
Consumer and digital-economy protection
Support stronger SIM-swap controls, a citizen view of SIMs registered to them and reusable, trusted identity for services that depend on a mobile number.
One national control layer. Separate operator mandates.
Each MNO, MVNO, distributor and channel participates through the same governed national framework. Operators retain their operational role; the regulator gains a consistent, auditable national view that no individual operator can provide alone.
All operators
A common national registry, not disconnected silos.
Verified identity
Biometric and identity-source assurance matched to policy.
Full lifecycle
Controls from stock allocation to suspension, recycling and review.
A practical path from legacy registration to continuous assurance
National programmes do not have to stop the market to improve it. Start with the current base, add controls at high-risk events, then move each operator, channel and lifecycle event onto a common standard.
01
Assess and ingest
Profile existing operator records, stock and identity evidence through controlled batch onboarding.
02
Verify new events
Bring new registration, SIM swaps, replacements and porting into real-time policy checks.
03
Remediate the base
Run staged re-registration and data-quality campaigns where evidence or identity is insufficient.
04
Operate and improve
Use analytics, exception queues and enforcement workflows to raise quality continuously.
Verify the person, the credential and the right to register
Use more than a name and a document image. The registry can combine biometrics, document evidence, credential checks and authorised national identity sources, with thresholds and manual review designed for the country’s policy and inclusion requirements.
A decision can be approved, declined, referred for adjudication or held as provisional. The programme determines the evidence required for each subscriber category and lifecycle event.
Face verification
Liveness, presentation-attack and injection defences, document or national-record comparison, and configurable 1:1 or 1:N checks.
Fingerprint assurance
Fingerprint capture and matching for high-assurance enrolment, duplicate detection and exception pathways.
Document and credential checks
OCR, MRZ, PDF417, NFC and ePassport data can be combined with document authenticity and identity-source checks.
National identity sources
Connect civil identity, immigration, business and other authorised sources through governed, auditable integrations.
Govern the SIM and device lifecycle, not just first registration
A credible national registry follows the identifiers and events that make a mobile connection real: SIM stock, ICCID, IMSI, MSISDN, IMEI, EID and the accountable subscriber record behind them.
01
Secure stock
Track SIM and eSIM stock allocation from receipt through distributor, agent and point of activation.
02
Registration
Bind ICCID, IMSI, MSISDN and, where required, device identifiers to a verified subscriber record.
03
Active use
Identify unregistered active SIMs, enforce policy limits and reconcile operator events in near real time.
04
Sensitive events
Apply elevated re-verification and cooling rules for replacement, SIM swap, porting and transfer.
05
Closure and recycle
Control suspension, dormancy, deactivation, deceased-person handling and safe number or SIM recycling.
Integrity that reaches the agent, channel, device and network
Fraud is rarely one bad transaction. It appears in patterns across agents, credentials, devices, locations, SIM swaps, stock movements and networks. National visibility turns those signals into a managed response.
Agent, channel and behaviour risk
Accredit agents, bind high-risk activity to an accountable user and surface velocity, reuse and unusual-location patterns for investigation.
Device and SIM controls
Use IMEI, EID, registered-device signals, geofencing and rooted or emulated-device controls where national policy requires them.
Evidence-led enforcement
Give operators clear remediation tasks and give the regulator an evidence trail for compliance, penalties, investigations and appeal.
Inclusion is an operating control, too
Design explicit pathways for minors and guardians, foreigners, refugees, corporate and government accounts, people with disabilities, failures to enrol, non-ID cases, appeals and manual adjudication. That protects the programme’s legitimacy as much as the biometric check protects its integrity.
National oversight without uncontrolled access
National-scale identity infrastructure must make its controls visible. The registry is designed around explicit policy, clear roles, evidence, audit and safeguards so a regulator can exercise its mandate while respecting privacy and due process.
Privacy by design
Configure data residency, retention, deletion, masking and tokenisation around the governing law and operating model. Biometric storage can be central, federated or constrained by policy.
Auditable access
Protect sensitive actions with role-based permissions, segregation of duties, digitally signed evidence, tamper-evident logs and independent audit views.
Lawful, proportionate access
Support warrant or authorisation-based access, purpose coding, scoped query tiers, oversight workflows and misuse controls rather than a standing open door.
Policy is configurable, versioned and explainable.
Set national or operator-level limits, category and residency rules, visa-expiry controls, waivers, escalation thresholds and effective dates without treating policy as hidden code.
Every decision leaves evidence behind.
Maintain signed enrolment evidence, decision reason, reviewer action and access history for the period and purpose defined by the programme’s legal and operational requirements.
Built around the programme, not just the platform
Technology alone does not create a sustainable national registry. Axon works with the programme’s legal, operating, service-delivery and technical stakeholders so that policy and systems reinforce each other from pilot to steady state.
Open ecosystem integration
Integrate MNOs, MVNOs, civil registries, immigration, business registries, MNP, CEIR/EIR, financial services and justice workflows through versioned, signed APIs.
Sovereign deployment choices
Deploy on-premise, in a national or sovereign cloud, or in a hybrid model with active-active resilience, controlled releases and operational observability.
Programme delivery
Bring policy, governance, migration, pilot, agent enablement, public communication, training and knowledge transfer into the delivery plan from the start.
Polaris SIM Registration
Operational registration, agent enablement, channel workflows and lifecycle management for an individual MNO or service provider.
National SIM Registry
Independent cross-operator identity assurance, policy enforcement, lifecycle governance and national oversight for a regulator or identity authority.
Frequently asked questions
What is a National SIM Registry?
How is it different from Polaris SIM Registration?
Can a national registry start with the existing subscriber base?
Which identity checks can be used?
How are people who cannot complete a standard biometric enrolment handled?
Can it run in-country for data-sovereignty reasons?
Related reading
Planning a national programme?
Start with the policy, operating model and evidence standard.
Talk to Axon about national registry architecture, migration, biometric assurance, governance controls or a practical pilot design.