I see lots of griping in thread, but it seems business as usual in the countries where registration is required.

https://www.comparitech.com/blog/vpn-privacy/sim-card-regist...

> The majority of national governments (around 160) require mandatory SIM-card registration, which means you need your real name and personal details to sign up for phone service. And just under 20 of these also require biometrics, e.g. your fingerprints or a facial scan, with eight more countries in the process of implementing such requirements.

The biometrics part is unnerving to be sure, but anonymous SIMs or DIDs are incompatible with fraud and spam fighting efforts. If you terminate bad actors, they’ll just keep spinning up more resources.

The interesting thing is despite the rules governments in countries like India or Ghana with strict registration laws will routinely find 3000 SIM cards on raids on simbox operators.

Who are these SIMs being registered to in these operations?

Destitute people or a carrier employee is bribed to activate the SIM cards without registration.

https://commsrisk.com/telco-corruption-fuels-simbox-frauds/

From experience in other EU countries, registering SIM-card registration helps exactly nothing. The biometrics also won't help.

Of course it doesn't. Especially with the low roaming costs inside Europe. Just grab one in another country and use that. It's purely theater. This is why it's so annoying.

My current provider Orange even requires me to re-ID at their shop periodically now :(

Stolen ID in Spain is rampant, it may be just a coincidence though?

IDs are stolen yes but they are generally discarded. They're just a side catch for pickpockets and the moment they steal the wallet they will take the money and dump the IDs in a nearby bin.

I was pickpocketed a few years ago and I searched all the bins in the area and I came up with ID cards, medical cards, bank cards etc of 9 different people that had been robbed that night!

I think the thieves do this because if you point them out to the police they won't have any evidence on their possession. Because if they have someone's ID on them they will have some explaining to do. For some cash not so much, you can't prove it was yours.

Not that the police do anything anyway because the Spanish law lets them go free with a minor fine if they stole less than 400 euro, even if it was the 50th time this month. This is really why pickpocketing is so extremely rampant here, it's risk-free and the gangs are basically professional businesses.

Thanks for the insight. I was robbed in Spain and the only thing of real value they got was my passport. Since you need ID to buy a sim card I just assumed there would be a huge market for stolen identity documents.